Honesty Is Always The Best Policy
by Teanni
Summary: Natalie York is the Executive Manager of a New York hotel, freshly divorced and living an occasionally pathetic life. What could make that whole scenario worse or possibly better? Perhaps meeting a gruff, disgruntled British hotel guest who's always ready to complain? BNB/OC
1. Routine procedure

Disclaimer: Jolly Gosh, it's time again, isn't it? All right. Here goes: **This is a non profit fanfiction. I do not own anything associated with the trademark WWE and am purely writing this fic out of fan-appreciation and respect for the hard work all those people put into giving us a great show each week. In other words: Please don't sue! **

**Author's** **note**: Ready to embark on the next journey with me? UntilNeverDawns, so glad to have you along for the ride my friend! I hope you alll will have fun reading and if that's the case, let me know. I appreciate each and every bit of feedback I can get. Always great hearing from you!

* * *

He held the 20 dollar note under the nose of the clerk without saying a word. The paper was folded between his index finger and his middle finger and he had his sunglasses on. He reckoned those kind of transactions didn't need any words or body language to help them along. How hard was it really to misunderstand any of this? He just wanted to pay for a cup of coffee.

How wrong he was about that! The gum chewing imbecile on the other side of the counter really seemed to feel the need to ask the following question: "Any change?"

Stuart Bennett's face settled into a scowl. Well, he was always sort of scowling, but now he was making a conscious effort to display that particular facial expression and succeed right away. No wonder, now that he was staring stupidity right in the face. It pained him greatly, who are we kidding, actually it didn't, but couldn't just let that slide.

He pulled off his sunglasses. "Let's rethink that question, shall we? Would I try to hand you a 20 dollar note if I had any change on me?" He gave the masticating imbecile a stare which was met with a blank, sort of vacant look. Nobody home. Stuart sighed. "Apparently not. By the way, I'm was not being overly eccentric or trying to brag with my riches like most of your customers probably do," you can insert a sneer at will here, because that was what Stuart was doing as he looked around the LaGuardia airport Starbucks, "I was just trying to pay for a bloody cup of bloody cappuccino..."

The imbecile swallowed visibly, because that's what you do when a tall muscular man gets agitated right in front of you, and snatched the 20 dollars from Stuart's fingers without a word.

When Stuart exited the Starbucks a couple of minutes later sipping from his cardboard cup, a self-satisfied grin was tugging at the left corner of his mouth. Today was a shitty day. He hated travel days, but a cup of coffee made everything better. He made his way over to his waiting friends, Drew and Stephen, who were determined to have a lay down at the hotel and catch up on some sleep rather sooner than later and had therefore renounced the pleasure of consuming caffeinated hot beverages.

Like them he was looking forward to a nice comfy bed after having spent the better part of the day on the road and only a taxi ride separated him from aforementioned bed, so his spirits were slightly lifted at the prospect.

"What happened? Did they make ya grind the feckin' coffe beans yerself, Stu?" Stephen Farrelly welcomed him back, which had Drew Galloway snigger next to him.

"Or did they have some trouble brewing you that double skinny non-fat latte your usually having?" the Scotsman decided to add after his sniggering had abated somewhat.

"Hilarious," Stuart gave both of them a mocking grin. "Find a cab yet?" he asked as he casually took another drink from his coffee, not wanting to waste any energy on thinking up with a retort to his friends inane comments. He could feel a slight headache coming on. He really needed to have a bit of a nap.

"Yeah, sunshine, as a matter of fact we have," Steve replied and the three men made their way outside to the waiting taxi. It was already late at night, so nobody paid them any attention as they weaved through the crowd of people at the airport, which was just fine because Stuart didn't feel like dealing with fans now. Mind you, now with his Bad News Barrett persona, it was much easier. People found it charming when he was rude. It made them laugh and he didn't have to waste any energy on politeness when he didn't feel like it. And today he certainly didn't feel like it at all.

Soon they hopped on the cab and gave the driver the address of one of those hotels the company had booked for them. The decision that Stuart would be on the show tonight had been made sort of last minute. On a whim. But it was just fine with him. Despite his gruff mood today, he enjoyed spending time with his mates. It reminded him of the good old days back in Europe. Back then everything had been simpler, but also kind of depressing, now that he thought about it. No money and busting your arse wasn't a nice lifestyle. Now they were still busting their arses, but the pay was slightly better and there were certain other benefits. Like sleeping at a nice hotel like this one for instance.

They got out of the cab. Everything was a routine right up to the check-in. They were pros at that. The hotel personnel that manned the reception looked kind of interchangeable everywhere. They always had some pretty girl with slicked back hair and a pleasant voice standing there. This time was no exception. Interchangeable pretty reception lady smiled at Steve and then Drew as she handed them their key cards. Stuart was next.

"You should have a reservation under Bennett as well," he said in a bored tone. Routine procedure, you remember, right?

Pretty reception lady typed his name into the system and was apparently displeased with the results, because she frowned. "I'm sorry, sir, but for some reason we don't have a reservation booked under that name."

Now he leaned on the counter with his elbow. "Alright, so are there any vacancies then?"

Pretty reception lady consulted her computer again and gave him a professional, but nevertheless sincerely regretful smile. "I'm sorry, sir, but apart from the honeymoon suite we are completely booked. There's a conference in town, you see and we've got lots of business men staying here..."

Behind him Steve and Drew grew impatient. He threw him a look over his shoulder. "No need to hang around. I don't need any babysitters to sort this...," he told them.

"Today's one of those days, ey?" Galloway remarked shrewdly, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet, with his hands in his pockets, as he could see in his peripheral vision.

Stuart narrowed his eyes. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Ya've got Post-travel-syndrome again," Farrelly informed him.

Stuart was just about to bark a question at his friend to find out what that twice damned "Post-travel-syndrome" was supposed to be when pretty reception lady decided to clear her pretty little throat behind him trying to claim his attention again. "If I might make a suggestion sir..."

He directed his gaze at her. It wasn't a very friendly one. His arms were crossed over his chest too, the international sign for I'm not up for a conversation. She continued to talk as if he wasn't glaring at her like she was an ant under a magnifying glass he was trying to light on fire.

"... maybe it would be advisable if you stayed with one of those two gentlemen, until we can get this situation sorted. I assure you, I will do everything to get you suitable accommodations come tomorrow morning." She looked at him expectantly after she had finished talking.

"He's not bunking with me. His feet stink like bad eggs," Galloway proclaimed behind him with a certain glee in his voice. The glee probably stemmed from being able to embarrass him in public.

"Don't cha look at me, Haggis! Apart from the smelly feet the fella snores like a chainsaw... I don't have any earplugs with me. So he's certainly not stayin' at me room."

Stuart smirked his best sardonic smirk at pretty reception lady. His eyes wandered to her name sign. It was exhausting calling her pretty reception lady in his head all the time. Natalie York. All right. He'd try to remember her name in case he felt like filing a complaint form later.

"I don't mean to be rude," that was a big fat lie actually, he meant to be rude, "but clearly one of your guys must have screwed up..." He was curious to see how she was going to deal with that. People at reception needed to be sycophants to do their job properly. It would be hard trying to suck up to him while dealing with that accusation.

"Sir," if he wasn't mistaken the way she said 'sir' now had a rather derisive ring to it, "I can guarantee you that I will investigate into the matter, since there has clearly been some sort of mistake or miscommunication, seeing as the other gentlemen's rooms have been booked and yours hasn't. At present, however, it seems advisable that we should concern ourselves with solving the problem at hand instead of assigning blame given the lateness of the hour." Her vocabulary was impressive. It also was impressive how it allowed her to tell him off without sounding actually rude, because to make it short what she was saying sans the posh words was something like "Suck it up and stop whining!"

"We should solve the problem? I think it's you who should solve the problem. I'm just the dissatisfied customer..." he told her gruffly.

"That's very unfortunate, sir. I was saying we because I was going to present you with a couple of options to choose from to help solve this problem, but if you're not willing to work with me, perhaps you should try to find a room elsewhere, however regretful we would be about that."

Regretful, huh? He bet his arse Miss York wasn't the least bit regretful to have him out of her hair.

Behind him, Galloway and Farrelly were sniggering again. He was glad he could provide the entertainment for tonight. Those two were so easily entertained.

"Get lost, you bloody tossers," he growled over his shoulder.

Years of dealing with the disgruntled Englishman didn't let the two men take offense at his words. The merely marked his behaviour down under "that's good old Stu for you". After trading some more joking insults with him they were off.

Prim and proper Miss York raised her delicate eyebrows when the words "wanker" and "feck" were uttered in an amicable exchange, but occupied herself with her computer, determined to sort the booking problem.

He was impatient for that situation to be resolved as well, so he focused his attention on her again. "Alright, so will you kindly tell me what my options are or do I have to beg?" he said in an annoyed tone of voice.

She smiled at him politely, again he had the odd feeling that that smile was laced with irony. Come to think about it, the whole exchange between them reminded him oddly of "Jeeves and Wooster", whereas he had the bloody part of Wooster assigned to him and Miss York had the good fortune of being cast as the suave butler Jeeves.

Miss Jeeves-York was still smiling when she answered, that smile wavering between politeness and irony. "Gladly so, sir. I'd suggest booking you for the honeymoon suite for tonight at the price of a regular room and tomorrow we will move you to another room, provided that suggestion meets your approval..."

"You said options...," he pointed out wanting to hear her other suggestions as well.

"The other option would be to provide one of your companies with some foot deodorant and ear plugs..." She had delivered that line with a completely straight face and that had him slightly impressed despite the circumstances.

"Are you trying to be funny...," he made a point out of staring at her name sign, "Miss York? I think in that case I would like to talk to the manager of this fine establishment..."

Her professional smile slipped for a moment and turned positively malicious. She pointed her index finger at the tiny golden name sign pinned to her chest. He squinted his eyes. Executive Manager. Blast!

"I'm sorry if my attempt at humour has had an adverse effect. I'd be happy to get my superior for you, only that today is his day off... At any rate I was merely trying to lighten the atmosphere by making a joke. Apparently I misjudged the situation. I apologize. This is very serious, of course." The last sentence was delivered with a smug grin that implied she didn't think that at all. Perhaps she dealt with more severe problems on a daily basis but there was really no need to give him any attitude. It was past midnight for crying out loud. He really didn't have a nerve for this. He wanted this conversation to be over with.

"Alright! Just give me the bloody honeymoon suite already," he growled in defeat.

"Very well, sir," she accompanied her words with a little nod and a victorious grin.

* * *

The second that pompous British bastard stepped away from the desk and was out of hearing range Natalie blew out a breath she had been holding for the entirety of the conversation. It wasn't the first time the WWE had booked their entire roster into their hotel and she dimly remembered having had to deal with some of those people before, but those dealings had never been that... She hesitated in her head trying to put a label on the experience... that interesting? Interestingly unpleasant? Instructive? Whatever the word was there had been some difficulty involved and it had been somewhat challenging. Not that she shied away from challenges. If she did, she wouldn't be in the position she was now. Thirty and executive manager of this hotel. Not too bad.

Natalie looked down at her manicured nails. Once again she had managed to ruin them. She wasn't the type for manicured nails, but it came with the job. She had started out, like most people in the hotel industry, at the very bottom of the food chain, working for housekeeping and since those humble beginnings she had never lost her very hands-on approach to the job. Sometimes she got down on her knees to scrub the occasional tub in one of those suites if she wasn't satisfied with the job the cleaning personnel had done. And on occasion, though very rarely, she would even help out at the hotel bar if there was an emergency.

At any rate she was a perfectionist and wanted to do her job the best she could. Customer satisfaction was a must to her. It annoyed her that someone had screwed up with Mr Bennett's room. Despite having said that she would, she didn't attempt to find out whose fault it had been. It was bordering on impossible finding the culprit and that was why she didn't even move a finger to investigate into the matter. What she did want to find out however, was who her somewhat rude and disgruntled guest was, so she hit Google a few seconds after the elevator doors had closed behind the ill-humoured Englishman.

* * *

The next morning Stuart breezed into the hotel lobby with his duffel bag slung over his shoulder. He was on his way to the gym. He was earlier than usual, so no one would pester him with small talk. But first he had to get past her.

By 'her' he meant the smug lady behind the check-in counter. He assumed she would still be there. It was only 7 am, so there was a chance she wouldn't be off duty yet. It turned out he was right, because he spotted her right away. There she was again with her polite smiles and her slicked back, long brown hair. Her smile seemed to be a bit on the tired side now, however, but it was still bright enough to be irritating.

"Good morning, Mr Bennett, I trust you have slept well..." Now she sounded like someone out of one of those dreadful Jane Austen novels middle-aged lady like to gibber on about.

"Yes, well enough. Thank you," he said, his voice all clipped. He wanted to be gone and not waste any time with this conversation.

"Well, regarding your room, I've got some bad news...," he raised his eyebrows at her. Did she really want to go down that road? Perhaps it was just a slip of tongue. She didn't look like she was interested in wrestling, let alone know anything about his gimmick or his in-ring character.

Still, those words almost made him slip into kayfabe. Damn this job to hell! Apparently he had been doing it too long. He rolled his eyes and stayed silent.

"But stay calm, this doesn't have to turn into an all-out bare-knuckled fight...," she grinned apparently thinking herself pretty clever for making those stupid remarks, which she obviously made to please him, but unfortunately they had a totally adverse effect on him. He was fuming internally, but he let her continue, "Since you're only spending one more night, I think it would be justifiable if you stayed in the honeymoon suite until your departure."

"Are you going to charge the normal rate or the same price you'd charge for a single room?" It was a practical question. Very much to the point and purpose orientated. Though he wasn't a nice man by anybody's standard, except his mum's maybe, she still seemed to think he was a good boy, it wasn't acceptable to yell at the hotel manager for no apparent reason other than finding her extremely annoying. But apparently his facial expression and his tone of voice gave away that he was less than thrilled with the conversation.

She sobered somewhat. It was clear she had been trying to get his approval and smooth the waves. His gruffness was only making her try harder.

"It wouldn't be right to charge you more than you would have paid, had the booking been done correctly..."

"Fine," he replied and followed that up with a brief nod of his head. For a second they established eye contact. He had a very austere sort of face with his crooked nose and his dark beard. His eyes had a hard look to them, like everything about him they slightly unsettled her. Mercifully he averted his gaze. It seemed like their conversation had reached its expiration date. "Thank you. Goodbye," he added in his clipped tones.

"Have a nice day, Mr Bennett and good luck tonight with the show."

"Yeah, thanks."

And with that he was gone. Every exchange with him left her with a bitter after-taste, like she had done something wrong and wasn't even aware of it. It made her re-trace her steps, re-evaluate the words she had uttered and made her feel insecure. It was a novelty, because she didn't get to do the job she did because she was insecure. She had slowly worked herself to the top and the path there hadn't been made out of rose pedals. It had been very difficult getting there. So difficult that in fact it had seemed impossible at times. But she had prevailed without losing herself and without giving all those bastards who were determined to make her life hell the satisfaction of breaking her.

* * *

Her shift ended. Paul Desoto, her best friend and colleague took over.

"Are you all right?"

"Yeah. Fine."

Paul's eyes narrowed. "You don't look all right."

"I'm fine. I just had to take care of a little problem with a dissatisfied costumer. It's all settled now."

"Just like I knew you would," he praised her.

"Thanks." She accepted his praise with a grateful little smile. After having had to deal with that rude Brit, it felt good getting a compliment.

"Okay, Nat, you get yourself home and have a good long nap." Paul pointed his finger at her admonishingly, so it was a pretty safe bet he meant what he was saying.

Natalie nodded dutifully. "Cross my heart..."

She gave him a tired little nod and padded him on the shoulder before she walked away from reception. Her head was already filled with fantasy of a lazy afternoon spend stretched out on the couch. Maybe some ice cream and her favourite TV show... Only one short trip to the staff room and she would be off. Her predecessor, the guy had a heart attack in his mid-forties, had warned her not to take a room at the hotel, so she had followed his advice and rented an apartment a couple of blocks away. She could wait to get home now.

She pushed the door to the staff room open. It was empty. She reached inside the inner pocket of her blazer and took out her cell phone. Something strange happened. Just when she was looking down at its little screen, it started to flash while the phone was ringing. She almost let it drop in surprise. The number on the display was unknown to her and for a second she contemplated whether she should take the call at all. Eventually, after a couple of more rings, she did.

At that point of time she didn't have any idea yet, but the look of those digits on her screen and the strange atmosphere of the empty staff room would forever be edged into her memory.

There was a male voice on the other side of the line. It was a New York hospital calling. The man asked her if she was Mr Philip York's daughter. He already sounded apologetic and uncomfortable when he asked that question. He sounded even more apologetic and uncomfortable when several seconds later he told her that her father had died. The words didn't register at first. They were surreal. It couldn't be true. Almost mechanically she asked what had happened. A stroke. A stroke? A stroke. The word continued to echo in her mind even when the man talked on.

"But I just talked to him on Monday. And he was okay. Are you sure this isn't some sort of mix-up?"

It wasn't. The man explained calmly how with the stress her father put himself through it was only a matter of time until it had repercussions on his health. He was working as a real estate broker... had been working, actually. She stumbled over the tenses in her head and the gradual realisation of what had happened started to seep into her consciousness.

"Miss York?"

Yes, she was still there. She tried to get herself together. It wasn't so hard to have a simple conversation on the phone, was it? She had a thousand talks over the phone during her work week, but none of those like this one. But she could do this and then she'd do the next thing.

Did she want to come and see him? For a couple of seconds, after that question had been asked, the line went complete silent. So silent in fact that her interlocutor felt the need to verify whether she was still there.

"I'm here."

"So?"

This was too much at once. Sure, she did want to see her dad one last time...

"I...," her voice failed her.

"Do you have anyone?" It was implied that she needed to share her pain with someone now. But her mother had died years ago. Car accident. Her dad was her only family left. Paul was her best friend, but he was currently working and she didn't feel like walking out there and starting to cry in the middle of the hotel lobby. Because she couldn't tell him without breaking down. She would break down. And she couldn't right now. She couldn't.

"Yes," she replied. It wasn't a lie. Not strictly speaking. She didn't have anyone right now, but in general she had people she could turn to.

The thoughts in her head were all muddled up. She started at the linoleum floor for a second. Why had she never noticed it was not only grey, but also had something like texture. There were dark lines on it. She squinted her eyes. Dread was washing over her. It was like a ice cold hand gripping her spine. The hospital. She needed to get there. It was expected of her. She expected herself to go. But for some reason it felt like climbing Mount Everest.

"I'll be there in about 30 minutes," she finally said in a voice that sounded mechanical and exhausted. Its sound didn't change when only a few seconds later she called herself a cab to get her from the hotel.

She didn't bother to take off the business uniform she wore for the job: the plain white blouse, dark pants, high heels, understated jewellery. Nothing mattered except getting to where her dad was. The rest of the world seemed to exist on the other side of the veil. The colours, sights, sounds and smells were muted. It was like a film sequence that felt distorted and alien. A different perspective, not the right one. A very bizarre one, slightly off. Like a parallel universe.

Things got real again soon enough. They got real when she saw him. When she touched his hand and it was cold. When she cried her first tears and some kind nurse hugged her and patted her back.

"Do you have someone?" they asked her again. And again she told her little half-lie.

"Would you like to talk to our counselor or a priest?"

She shook her head. "Not right now. No."

"I understand. Things like this need time. Maybe you want to go home now. Call a friend..."

Home? No, she didn't want to go home. She couldn't stand the idea of an empty apartment. It sounded dreadful now. She would be alone with her thoughts there and she wasn't sure she wanted to be, so she did something crazy. She went back to the hotel.

She sneaked in through the back entrance, got on the service elevator and rode up to some random floor where she send home some of the responsible personnel from housekeeping, because today, she announced with a stony face, she would do their job. She assigned a couple of rooms to herself, grabbed the necessary utensils and went to work.

Scrubbing things clean, making beds and airing rooms had something therapeutic. She knew from experience that those sorts of activities managed to calm her when she was upset. But today she was not only upset. It was worse... So part of her tried to focus on the still familiar sequence of work steps that had been drilled into her head and for a while it worked, but at some point, after what her hands were doing had become too much of a routine, her thoughts started to wander. The inevitable happened. Right after she was done with the next-to-last room she broke down crying. Finally the realization of what had happened swept over her. Her father had died.

* * *

After his work-out Stuart was in no better spirits than earlier. From the moment he had gotten up he had had the pleasure of being bothered by something like a migraine, which wouldn't even disappear after lifting weights and doing an hour of cardio. He stepped off the lift, walked past a door labelled 'staff', he only registered in the periphery of his vision, because there were strange sounds like sobs coming out of it. Apparently working for this hotel was just as depressing as staying in it. He walked on and after fiddling around with his key card for a couple of seconds, he opened the door to his suite rather energetically.

The bed was unmade. He popped his head into the bathroom. Just as he had suspected. Everything looked like he had left it this morning, so obviously housekeeping had failed to do his room. That wouldn't have been much of a problem if there hadn't been yesterday's incident already. That, coupled together with his gradually intensifying migraine, was enough to propel him towards the door and rip it open.

He had heard a sound coming from that door next to the lift, so somebody had to be in there. He knocked at the door, muttering curses under his breath as he waited for a reaction. Then, after a couple of seconds, the doorknob was twisted and the door opened. He looked into a pair of sad eyes, under which an unattractive amount of mascara had gathered. As a matter of fact, probably thanks to all the crying the woman had undoubtedly been doing, there were also tiny little black splotches on her blouse.

Only at a second glance he recognized the woman as that pesky creature from behind the desk in the lobby. He snapped his mouth shut. His hand was still raised as if he wanted to knock some more at the already open door. He lowered it, looking down at the pitiful sight in front of him.

"Did you want something?" she asked, her voice quivery and shaky, while her eyes were shining brightly.

Christ! He didn't want to be dealing with a crying woman. For a second he wavered indecisively between his two options: yes and no, but finally decided to go with 'yes'.

"I think housekeeping has forgotten me," he informed her matter-of-factly.

For some reason his remark seemed to have a humorous effect on her. Well, at least initially. She laughed and then suddenly she wasn't laughing anymore. She was wailing again.

It triggered his flight impulse. Automatically he started looking around uncomfortable. Wasn't there somebody around better suited for dealing with crying women than him? No Stephen? No Drew? He had issues with those sorts of things. He wasn't the consoling type. He didn't mollycoddle people and hug them and say nonsensical things like 'there, there'. Crap! Crap! Crap!

"I'm sorry...," she snivelled, trying to wipe her tears away. "I'm being unprofessional. It's... Well... You see, my dad..." Her eyes glazed over again. Her voice broke. He would probably have to hug her now. He settled for something he felt less uncomfortable about. He patted her shoulder awkwardly.

What had happened to her dad? Surely nothing good. Probably died by the looks of it. Crap. He couldn't walk away now without looking like a completely heartless fucking bastard.


	2. Auto-destruct Sequence Aborted

**Author's note**: Thank you so much for the warm welcome this story has received. For all those nice comments, the favourites and the follows. Please, do keep them coming. Feedback = inspiration, motivation, always good.

I agree. There is not enough Wade Barrett fic around indeed. I loved "Pocket Rocket", but unfortanutely I gobbled it up to quickly... Kudos to the writer, by the way.

* * *

"Come on," he told her in the gentlest version of his raucous voice, "some broom closet is hardly the right place for this." His hand still on her shoulder, he let her down the corridor to his room, internally cursing fate for getting him into all kinds of trouble again and again and again.

He bid her to sit down on the sofa and for a second he hovered at the door, from which he took in the sight of her sitting on the sofa crying quietly and hugging herself. It was a pitiful sight and despite his gruff sort of character touched something inside of him.

All that crying must have left her parched, so he got a bottle of water from the mini-bar, opened it and gently held it under her nose. In order to do so he had to squat down next to her. She raised her head ever so slightly to look at him, trying to figure out why he had approached her. Then her eyes settled on the water. She reached for it and nodded gratefully. At least he had done something right.

"I'm sorry about the room," she said eventually after having taken a couple of sips from the cold water. She sniveled her nose and wiped at her cheeks with the back of her hand.

"Do you have any tissues?" she asked sheepishly.

He nodded. One singular nod, then a couple of seconds later a box of tissues was held under her nose. He had quickly gotten it from the bathroom. The hotel's emblem, imprinted on the rectangle metal box, gleamed up briefly under the artificial light from the ceiling.

"Thank you." Natalie pulled one of those tissues out of the box and noisily blew her nose.

For a second she had been distracted from the pain she felt. But now the one sentence that had dominated her thought process was slowly coming back to the forefront of her consciousness. It was like a mantra that repeated itself over and over. _My father died. My father died. My father died._ "My father died," she eventually choked out, before she started to cry again. At this point she had done so much crying that her eyes hurt and her throat hurt too, but it seemed like she wasn't done with it yet.

"How did he die?" she heard him ask. His matter-of-fact way of absorbing the information surprised her enough to raise her head and feel the need to answer him.

"A stroke," she said in a small kind of voice.

"Unexpected?"

"Yeah," Natalie nodded, thinking back to her last conversation with her dad. Something about how much their respective jobs sucked and how they needed a holiday. Trivial things. If she had known that this would have been their last ever conversation, she would have made sure to talk about more important things than that. She would have made it count.

The sound of displeasure he made and his rough, but not unpleasant voice ripped her out of her reverie. "Crap."

Surprisingly his swearing made her smile briefly and for the briefest of moments the corners of his mouth twitched as if he felt a compulsion to reciprocate that smile. It was only an educated guess. He was a stranger after all, she didn't have a clue about what was going on inside of him. A stranger... It was time to leave. What kind of image did sitting around crying in a guest's room project?

"I'm sorry. It's going to be fine now. I'll go... Thank you...," she faltered.

"Stuart," he held out his hand to her. It was big, the gesture energetic.

Hesitantly she grabbed it and his fingers closed around hers and squeezed immediately. "Natalie."

She felt another wave of sadness hit her. He let go of her hand and sat down in the armchair opposite the door. It only occurred to her now that he was dressed for a work-out. This morning she had been too keen to please him to notice and later, well, later in the face of the news that her father had died, it simply hadn't mattered.

He showed no inclination whatsoever to get up and hold open the door for her, so she guessed she had to do it herself. She stood up. She was trying not to cry this time, so a tiny drop of tear fluid leaked from her nose. In passing she quickly took another tissue from the box, although she was unsure what to do with the used one she was still holding in her other fist.

"Just for future reference, Natalie, us wrestlers, we don't appreciate any cheesy lines about our gimmicks. It's not cute. It's not charming. It certainly won't score you any bonus points with people."

What was he talking about? For a moment she had to wrack her brains because everything prior to that fateful phone call seemed to have been erased from her memory.

"Are you talking about our conversation from this morning?"

"We haven't had too many conversations to pick from, have we?" He asked leaning back in his armchair looking at her.

For now she wasn't leaving, but she wasn't staying either. She was standing in front of the couch, unsure whether to sit down or not.

"Sit," he said not unkindly. "You're in no condition to go anywhere. Good thing that a crying woman leaving my hotel room in the morning won't damage my image, huh?"

She blinked a couple of times, unsure how to respond to that.

"That was supposed to be some kind of lame joke...," he clarified.

"Ah, okay." The room was completely silent for a couple of minutes.

She made a couple of sluggish steps toward the couch where she had sat before. Apparently not ready to sit down yet, she looked at him.

"Why would you bring up that conversation again? It was such a rude thing to say..."

He stayed silent trying to put together an answer to her question in his head. The truth was he didn't really know. It had just been an impulse. He didn't want her to leave, so he had to say something to stop her from doing so. Why he had wanted her to stay was just as difficult a question as the other ones. Consoling her was a pain in the ass. But he had to do it, unfortunately. He had started thinking of her in a more personal way, so calling her a faceless hotel lackey in his head didn't work anymore. Now he cared for what happened to her. She had a name now, a back-story. She was someone to him now, however cumbersome that was.

"Well, look at yourself," he motioned at her with his hand. "You've got mascara under your eyes," those words made her wipe repeatedly underneath the aforementioned eyes, while he already talked on, "You're barely holding it together, so you won't last a second outside there without turning into a sniveling mess again..."

"So you chose to insult me?"

"Insult you?" He smirked. "Come on. You weren't insulted..."

"Actually... No... I can't say I was," she had stopped rubbing at her mascara and was now staring at the couch as if it was some mystery object, not a simple piece of furniture.

"Maybe there's something wrong with me...," she thought out loud. Her eyes were still on that blasted sofa. He got up, for a moment hovering in one spot indecisively. Then, when he had reached a decision about what to do, he took a few steps towards her. His hand gently touched her shoulder, but she still flinched and sucked in a breath.

"Sit down," he told her again.

"Why? It won't make a difference..." She said, her voice barely above a whisper. "This is all such a mess."

His eyes narrowed a bit there. He stepped in front of her. She was stubbornly still staring in the same spot. What a pleasant day this was turning out to be. Why couldn't this have happened to someone with actual social skills, like his mates Stephen and Drew?

"Natalie," her name from his lips sounded unfamiliar. It was the British accent. It sort of altered it and gave it a new ring. Or maybe it was just his exasperation with her shining through. At any rate she finally looked at him.

"You're right, whether you're sitting or standing won't make a difference. Won't bring your dad back from the dead, but neither is you crying or anything else you're going to do for that matter..."

His words made her breath hitch. For a moment there she looked like she was about to smack him or possibly cry again. He didn't care much whether she hit him or not. She didn't look like she packed much of a punch. What he did care about though was whether the waterworks would start again. He had had enough of that.

Quite surprisingly, instead of crying, she stopped being pigheaded and brushed past him to let herself slump down on the couch with a huff.

"Are you always this honest?" she asked craning back her neck to look at him, because he was very tall and still towering over her.

Instead of an answer he turned around and sat back down in his chair from before. "Why? Does it bother you? You wouldn't be the first, sunshine, and certainly not the last," he smirked at her like he was proud of himself because of that.

"It's better than lying at any rate," she said stubbornly, sitting up a bit straighter as she uttered those words. Of course the fact that she was still sniveling was undermining her pathetic attempt at aloofness.

He squinted his eyes together looking her over, because her remark forced him to reassess her. Only now he went through the trouble of actually taking the time to look at her properly. Up until that moment thinking of her in terms of that pretty brown-haired woman from reception had been enough. She had those girl next door looks. Brown eyes, aesthetically pleasing features. Her nose was neither too big nor too small and her lips were a regular pair of lips. Nothing extraordinary, but still pretty to look at.

Having finished his re-evaluation of her, he leaned back in his seat, deciding to speak again. "Better than lying, I see. So you've been lied to a lot in the past?"

Her face that had been pale before flushed a little at his words. She pressed her lips together. Obviously he had hit a nerve. "I don't want to talk about that now... This is already hard enough."

"Cause you're busy feeling sorry for yourself...," he supplied.

"What? Why would you say something like that?" Fresh tears were glistening in her eyes now. He was bolloxing things up badly by the looks of it, but he couldn't and wouldn't act any differently than he did. This was him trying to console her. If she wasn't satisfied with what he tried here, she could leave just as well.

"In my experience... when people die, you don't just cry because they're dead. You cry because you feel sorry that you can't talk to them anymore. You're crying because you're aware of your own mortality for once. You're crying because you're thinking about what's missing from your life... This is not actually about your dad."

"Wow!" she actually laughed a little there despite her tears. "Wow!" she repeated, genuinely taken aback and scandalized. "Is that how you see things? Have you never lost somebody close to you?"

He regarded her for a couple of seconds. In order to do so, he leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees, his outstretched arms and his folded hands pointing at her. The artificial light from above cast dark shadows on his face and accentuated his crooked nose. "I have. Everyone has. Death and suffering and pain, that's what this life is about sometimes. The importance is just not to let it get you down..."

"Right, looks like you really live by that credo. You're so cheerful," she shot back unthinkingly. His rudeness and brutal honesty had made her forget that in the real world thoughts needed to be run through a filter before they could become actual opinions expressed in sentences.

He didn't rebuke her for her behavior, he just sat there as if her words didn't have any impact on him, but she was still embarrassed for herself. "I...," she looked down, twisting the remains of one of her handkerchiefs in her hands. "That was uncalled for. After all you tried your best..."

"Yeah, I tried my best to stop you from crying."

"I'm still crying," she pointed out.

"Never said I was any good at it," he observed as he rubbed his hands together and regarded his palms.

His remark made her smile, despite... well, despite everything. It was only a brief and fleeting success, because her smile fell just as quickly and on top of that he never saw it because he was still busy staring at his hands. Although she'd rather not admit it, her mood was changing. The conversation with him had indeed distracted her from being sad, at least for a while there.

"So what's your fondest memory of your old man? What kind of bloke was he?" he eventually asked. Those questions seemed forced, like he felt they were expected of him. Perhaps he was trying again to cheer her up. For both of their sakes she decided to play along.

"Funny story," she actually smiled briefly when she said that. "My dad was a sports fanatic. He used to watch soccer matches all the time. After mum died, I tried everything to get his attention, find some common ground. We didn't have that much to talk about, so I figured if I liked soccer like him, we'd finally have something to bond over..." Her words were spoken softly, but it was clear that they were important despite of that.

"So my fondest memory of him would probably have to be me and him playing soccer in the backyard when I was ten," she answered and her brown eyes transfixed him across the room. For some reason it made him feel uncomfortable. This was way too personal. He got up, started walking. That didn't deter her from continuing to speak.

"It was just him and me and that was fun. I think," she smiled, "he let me win most of the time. Then later, when things got busier with his job, he didn't have the time or the energy for that any more. So we started watching games together..."

"You mentioned that your mum died... What happened?" Like a bloody masochist he felt the need to learn more about her. Now that he had stopped feeling uncomfortable about the amount of information she dispensed he had become curious. It was bad. Bad and disgusting like reading gossipy articles in _The Sun_ or _OK!__ Magazine_, still he couldn't stop himself.

"Died when I was little. Car accident."

That was that. She fell silent again.

How was he supposed to bridge that gaping silence? Not that he was opposed to silence of any kind, actually he was a huge fan of silence. It had the pleasant side effect of masking ignorance at times. But right now silence wasn't really constructive. If he left her with enough time on her hands, she would inevitably start feeling sorry for herself again. Not that talking about one's dead parents was a particularly uplifting alternative, mind you.

"So football...," he attempted to get the conversation back on track. She looked at him abruptly and with wonder in her eyes, as he had just brought it to her attention again that he too was inside this very room with her.

"Yes?"

"So you watched football with your old man..."

"I also played. Later in college."

"What position did you play?"

"Midfield."

There was a brief moment of silence. The information of her playing football somehow didn't fit with the rest of what he had learned so far about her. Perhaps it was a lie? He wanted to check to be sure.

"Central? Defensive? Attacking? You haven't given me much to work with here..."

"Mostly defensive," she told him, throwing him an odd look.

"All right then."

Their conversation sort of came to a halt there. After all, they were forced to spend time together and get to know each other because of outside circumstances. Under those conditions there was only so much you could talk about.

"So, do you have someone to talk to about your dad?" he asked eventually.

She looked at him for a moment, trying to understand the context out of which this question had been asked, because it wasn't apparent. It was starting to dawn on her that he obviously wanted to get rid of her now. "Yes," she said eventually.

He scratched his chin for a second. "Well, for your sake I hope they're less rubbish at this than I am..."

"No, don't say that," she protested. "Thank you for putting up with me. I'm sorry you had to see this. Actually," her face briefly settled into a grimace, "I'm kind of embarrassed about how I behaved just there. Maybe I should go now...," she said already getting up. He noticed how she, true to her own words, was visibly embarrassed and awkward all of a sudden. Why she should feel the need for that now of all times was beyond him. In his humble opinion, the perfect time for it would have been when she had been crying and noisily blowing her snotty nose on those hankies. Being embarrassed at this particular point in time did only make sense if she only realized now that she had given away far too much personal information to a practical stranger.

"No one's keeping you," he said non-committally and got up as well to hold the door open for her.

He could tell she didn't know what to make of his comment. It made him smirk discreetly, curious how to see she would handle it. Under pressure most people would revert to their default behavior pattern. Apparently hers was politeness.

"Thank you so much again. I mean it," she told him again and actually stopped to meet his eyes one last time.

Because he couldn't come up with something snide to say now and there was no amusement to be had from verbally dismantling your interlocutor when he or she is at a visible disadvantage, he limited himself to the words: "You're welcome."

* * *

Finally home. Natalie turned the keys and quickly stepped inside. The door was barely closed and she was already leaning against it. The left one of her shoes, she was about to kick both off, was hanging onto her foot by her big toe before it eventually landed on the floor with a thud. She looked down on the tanning line on her left ring finger like she did a lot of times during the day. The apartment was silent. Natalie sighed. Tony had moved out a couple of months ago.

If she walked the remaining steps down the corridor that gave into the living room, she would soon see proof of their separation and she wasn't sure she could take that right now. The couch was still there, but she had to buy a new TV, because he had taken the old one along with his half of the DVD collection. He had taken some of her movies too, but she didn't have the energy to argue about that on top of everything else. She had thought she had hit her low point with being a newly divorced woman of barely thirty, but apparently it could get much worse than that. Now she was a parent-less, newly divorced woman of barely thirty.

She let her back slide down the door. Her bag sort of fell from her shoulder in the process and landed on the floor next to her. She didn't have enough energy left to cry. Her forehead touched her knees as she bent forward. What was she going to do now? She was a very practical sort of lady - moping around just wasn't her style, but right now even standing up and slouching to the bedroom seemed like a challenge. Of all the rooms the bedroom was the worst, by the way. That's where she was reminded most of Tony, that and the kitchen. But right now mourning the end of her marriage took the back burner to mourning the death of her father.

What was it her dad had said? One thing at a time. Not the most brilliant advice, however just perfect for the situation at hand. You have to take your time to do things. You can't do everything at once. One step after the other.

* * *

The Smackdown taping had gone according to plan. For once there had been no injuries, no glitches, just smooth sailing. He and his mate Steve had pummeled the bleeding hell out of each other, they had a lot of experience doing that because they went way back, and had given the audience a rather decent show, if he might add. To his great satisfaction, actually the thought still made him smirk, there had been "this is awesome" chants. At least people were able to recognize talent when it practically smacked them right in the bloody faces.

Now he was about to check-out of the hotel. There was another pretty reception lady sitting behind the desk looking at him with bright eyes and an equally bright smile.

"I hope you had a pleasant stay with us...," she said cheerfully, baring her pearly-whites at him in a smile as she handed him the bill over the counter. The number at the bottom consisted of four digits, not of three like he had expected. He sighed and rolled his eyes.

"I thought we had taken care of that problem already..."

"What problem, sir?"

"A problem I would like to discuss with the Executive Manager, because I talked to her about it in the first place and you wouldn't know anything about it or be able to help me," he told her with an annoyed look on his face.

That made that smile of hers quickly fall. She even seemed nervous now. "Of course, sir. Right away, sir," she said in a subdued kind of voice before she reached for the telephone into which she muttered a couple of soft spoken words. A minute or so later the lift doors to their right opened and he heard the approaching tac-tac-tac of a pair of heels walking on the polished stone floor.

"Mr Bennett. You're still here?" he heard her address him with a mixture of uneasiness and politeness in her voice. He turned his head to look at her. She was smiling awkwardly and contrary to last time he had seen her when her face had been tear-streaked, she looked impeccable. Not a hair out of place. Still there was that sadness in her eyes that even her artificial smile couldn't make go away.

"Obviously," he answered in a dry, sardonic fashion. It had been a rather dense and superfluous question, considering that he just had had the receptionist call her.

"So... how can I help you?"

"Didn't you promise me you'd only charge me for a regular single room?"

"Yes, I believe I did," she said cautiously, because caution was advisable judging by the look on his face. He seemed more disgruntled than usual.

"Care to explain this then," he handed her his hotel bill and she visibly blanched.

"Oh, dear!" her professional façade slipped for a second there. Her eyes grew huge and she kept looking back and forth between the sheet of paper and his face.

"Exactly."

"Miss Wilson," she addressed the girl behind the counter, slipping back into the role of a confident business woman as she did, "I'll take care of Mr. Bennett's problem."

The girl in question nodded and Natalie quickly disappeared behind the reception desk, muttering further apologies as she started to furiously type something into a keyboard, which was doubtlessly supposed to inspire the printer to spit out the correct hotel bill as quickly as possible.

As Stuart waited, he took the time to observe her more closely. Underneath her polite demeanor she seemed on edge. Her eyes looked tired. Her smile was a little too bright and showed too many teeth when she finally handed him the new and improved version of his bill. He looked at the sheet one last time and signed it. The company would take care of it, so he just needed to put his name on the dotted line.

"Again I am so sorry, Mr. Bennett. On top of everything else this shouldn't have happened. I'll hope you'll consider staying with us regardless the next time you come to New York."

Her artificiality was almost painful to witness now, even more so when her eyes betrayed her. But that was none of his business he told himself. It was time to leave anyway.

"I will consider it," he said non-committally and picked up his duffel bag from the floor.

"Please do," she said and held out her hand to him over the counter. For a second or two he regarded it as if he was surprised by the gesture, then he eventually shook it. The grasp of his hand was firm, his palms felt rough, but warm. For the brief duration of the handshake their eyes met. Again it struck him how sad she looked, despite trying to hide it so well. He let go of her hand and stepped away from the counter.

He turned and walked away. Unbidden, yesterday's conversation with her resurfaced from his memory. He stopped walking right when he had reached the revolving door that presented the exit of the hotel. A string of mumbled curses left his lips. He cared. Damn it!

With a displeased scowl on his face he marched back to the reception desk where Natalie awaited him with an apprehensive expression on her face.

He reached inside the breast pocket of his jacket and produced one of his business cards. With a gesture of almost disdain he placed it on the shiny marble surface of the counter.

"Come on! Take it. It won't bite."

She looked at the glossy black card with the white lettering on it with a tiny bit of suspicion, but eventually reached for it. It had his name, address, email and telephone number on it, she discovered as she gingerly picked it up and turned it over.

"I'm afraid I don't know what you're trying to tell me here..."

His eyes sparkled at her in a rather belligerent way and she shut up immediately. In an unexpected display of almost sensitivity he lowered his voice. Almost sensitivity because on the one hand he seemed to be aware that her colleague was listening, but on the other he was thoroughly uncaring of however rude his words were.

"Oh please! Spare me," he managed to sound just as gruff as normally despite his lowered voice. "Look at yourself. You've got that suicidal expression in your eyes again..."

"I... I... Don't. Whatever gave you that idea?" her voice was hushed too, but on edge.

"Everything about you practically screams 'I'm a so bloody sad, please rescue me.'," he scoffed. "So kindly do both of us a favour, take the blasted card, shut up about it and give me a call before you decide to do something drastic like offing yourself."

She gaped at his words. It was unimaginable to her how a single human being could be so spiteful and yet again somewhat caring. Because no matter how enraged she was by his comments, the good intention behind them was also pretty easy to spot. He just chose to mask it behind being immensely hurtful.

"Why, I would never!" she gasped.

"That's reassuring," he shot back dryly. "At any rate, if you want to talk...," he sighed, apparently feeling pained and regretful about making the offer, "give me a call."

"Why would I? You don't seem like you would be happy hearing from me," she replied, despite the fact that she had already slipped his card into the chest pocket of her blazer.

"Perhaps I wouldn't, but there are things like morals. And despite my strong wish to not be bothered with your personal drama, there is such a thing as right or wrong. I feel morally and personally obligated to do this..." He didn't give her a chance to answer there. What would she have said anyway? Surely nothing intelligent judging by the dumbfounded expression on her face. At any rate he had done what he had expected himself to do and that was enough, so he turned and left.

* * *

Contrary to what Stuart thought, Natalie didn't have any wish to "off" herself. She did however feel the increasingly strong wish to run away from her life in New York.

She did eventually tell her friend Paul what happened and he gave her the shoulder to cry on, her conversation with Stuart had failed to provide her with. But eventually when she was home alone again, on those quite evenings she spent alone staring at the TV, but not actually following any program she watched, she thought about things. About life and death and the sense of it all.

After everything that had happened she felt numb and tired. She felt like she was running on autopilot at work. What was worst about it was the fact that she was forced to smile at guests and pretend that she was cheerful while she was just tired of it all. She was tired of pretending she was okay. Because she really wasn't.

That had become quite clear to her early on because smiling now required an almost in humane amount of effort, whereas in the past it had come easy to her. Working as a hotel manager was her dream job. She had loved it. Somewhere deep down she supposed she still loved it, just not right now.

What surprised her and shocked her was also the fact that some people close to her could tell immediately that something was up, while she had been convinced she had everybody fooled. Paul just looked at her once, for about half a second and stated that he could tell there was something wrong with her, which had led to her breaking down and crying and him consoling her, being her very much supportive best friend. He provided comfort without no ulterior motive. There was nothing in it for him sexually, because he was gay. All he got out of the deal was a soggy T-shirt and the satisfaction of being there for a friend.

But the comfort he provided wasn't enough. He couldn't be there 24/7. He couldn't be there whenever she felt lonely at night in a flat that was much too big for one person. So at her personal low point she hunted down her work blazer from the laundry basket, reached inside it with jittery fingers and pulled out Stuart's card.

She knew that calling him was a bad idea right as soon as she pressed the call button, but she remembered talking to him and how it had made her feel less numb, despite the shock of her father's death being quite fresh.

"Yes," he answered simply and she could hear the noise of many voices talking in the background. Obviously he was in a place where a lot of people were around.

"This is erm... Natalie," she said insecurely, already regretting her decision.

"Right. Hold on a second," he replied. His voice was muffled when he spoke again. He was probably covering the mouthpiece with his hand, because his words were clearly not directed at her. "I'm dreadfully sorry," What? Fake politeness? He had to be talking to someone important, "but I have to take this. It's important."

The sound of voices in the background decreased significantly. Then he spoke again. "Step away from the ledge, sunshine. I'm here."

What had she expected honestly? At this point she was discouraged enough to consider hanging up right away. "Sorry, to bother you..."

"Actually surprisingly you're not bothering me at all, you just provided me with a very good excuse to escape the most boring and tedious conversation I've ever had the pleasure of participating in..." His voice actually had a pleased note to it. She identified it as such, because she had never heard anything comparable in his dulcet tones other than annoyance and boredom.

"Who were you talking to?"

"The boss's daughter. She thought I was interested in kiddy birthday parties for some reason... Must be my face that clearly screams I'm dying to talk about renting bouncy castles," he drawled sarcastically.

"You certainly don't give off that impression..."

"What a relief," Stu's response was about as dry as the Mojave Desert. So very, very dry indeed. "So since you're not standing on the ledge what is the point and purpose of this call?"

"I don't know," she replied truthfully.

"Okay, this is would have to be the point where I would actually hang up if the prospect of going back in there instead wasn't so overwhelmingly lacking in appeal..."

"Can I ask you something?"

"You can. Whether I'll answer is a different matter though."

"Right," she licked her lips, considering the alternatives to the sentence that was on the tip of her tongue. She found none, even though it was a rather tactless thing to say. Perhaps being prone to his rudeness had actually dulled her own awareness of what was socially acceptable. "Why are you always like that?"

He laughed, genuinely amused by her question. "And here I thought that you'd say something deep for a change... I'm sorry but you won't get a tale of woe and sorrow out of me. That's just the way I am."

For a while there she remained quiet.

"Depressing, innit? When something can't be romanticized."

"I wasn't going to. I just wanted to understand you better."

"Understand this: if you're looking to be mollycoddled, go look somewhere else. If you want to talk about nonsense, don't bother me again. My time is too precious for that."

She chewed her bottom lip. Again as so many times when talking to him, she was wavering between fascination and repulsion. And yet again fascination paired with a little desperation thrown in the mix eventually won out and compelled her to ask the following question: "What would be a valuable use of your precious time then?"

"Was that a hint of sarcasm just there? Heavens, didn't know you had it in you. Easy! Don't strain yourself now."

"I just prefer irony to sarcasm. It's less hurtful."

"And yet you consciously seek out conversations with me. If I didn't know any better, I'd say that's plain masochism."

"You haven't answered my question yet..."

"What question?"

"The question as to what constitutes a valuable use of your time?"

"Football... Literature... Wrestling," she could almost see him counting of those things on his fingers before her mind's eye.

"Football would be an option."

"Good. Before this goes any further, let me check if she's gone. If so, this conversation would of course inevitably be over...," a brief pause followed. She should have used it to let him know that he was conceited, insensitive and a pompous ass, but she didn't for some reason. It was probably because right now she was rather low on self-esteem.

"Talk, she's still blocking the way to the free food."

For the next half an hour they had a surprisingly entertaining and lively discussion about football. At some points in the conversation she thought she could even detect amusement in his voice. His gruffness and his abrasiveness were starting to bother her less and less now, as she became more and more focused on what he was saying instead of how he was saying it.

Their conversation over the phone was fun while it lasted, but eventually one of them had to hang up. In the end it was her that ended the phone call. He had just told her about his favorite team, Preston North End, and she had been barely able to suppress a yawn. It wasn't that she wasn't interested, she was, but it was getting late and she needed to go to work tomorrow. She knew that he would rip her to shreds for yawning when he talked about something he loved, so she didn't want to risk anything.

After carefully working her way towards a smooth exit, she eventually thanked him for listening. A grave mistake as it turned out. Contrary to other Brits she had met, he didn't do polite self-effacement.

"You do well to thank me. After all I spent all this time out on the terrace, in spite of being at the reception, like I was supposed to."

"Where are you anyway?"

"Florida."

She smiled. "I'm sure the temperatures should be no danger to your weather-proof, sturdy British physiology."

"Charming. Do give irony a try more often. It makes you less boring."

"I think this constitutes about the 100th barely veiled insult you've thrown at me tonight," she told him.

"Always happy to oblige."


	3. The Bad Habit of Caring

**Author's note:**Hey there! I'm back with more and one day early.

Thank you to my awesome beta "UntilNeverDawns". If you like the Shield and Dean Ambrose in particular, be sure to check out "Edge of Destruction".

Thank you so much, especially to "broguekicking (brilliant username btw) and "Livhardy". I do love writing Barrett. He's so moody and rude and that allows for unusual dialogue writing options. Stay tuned for more. Because there is more to come.

* * *

Cosmic karma for once wasn't a bitch. Apparently someone somewhere had decided that poor Natalie had had her share of heartbreak for that quarter, so when her superior called her up to his office, it wasn't to fire her or deliver any equally bad news, in fact he wanted to offer her a job as a hotel manager. That meant a higher pay grade and also that Paul would take over her old job and everyone would be happy. Except for the only catch about the plan. The hotel was in Tampa, so she would move away from New York and leave everything and everyone behind...

Surely that would have been a dramatic cut in her life at any other point of time, but right now the question was: Who exactly was she leaving behind again?

Okay, there was Paul. Yes, he was her best friend. But apart from that, there were only some other colleagues at work that she had become rather close to in the last couple of years. She had invested all her time and energy in her job and in her marriage. It hadn't been the greatest idea to not also focus on having a private life in hindsight, but Florida meant a fresh chance and maybe she could do things differently there.

The thought of trying something new was tempting to say the least. Starting over completely from a scratch without any added weight sounded interesting. It made her feel young again, basically like a teenager. Most women her age already had families, while she got the chance to re-define herself. Partly that was a privilege, but partly it was also somewhat sad, because deep down she also wanted the white picket fence and the 2,5 children playing on a green front lawn. But perhaps she wouldn't have to give up on that dream entirely. A fresh start. Who knew what might happen? She tried to focus on the positive things.

Another argument she mentally wrote down on the plus side was that she would finally be able to leave some of the memories of her failed marriage behind. Also she could stop living in fear of running into Tony at their favorite cafes or restaurants, which was all in all a good prospect, because it had limited her already quasi non-existent social life considerably.

Another thing that tempted her about the offer was that sense of adventure it entailed. The idea whether she would be able to master that challenge was something that attracted her, so quite impulsively she said 'yes'.

What followed was the inevitable talk with Paul, who told her with his usual charming way that he hated her, but also loved her very much. On the one side he was extremely happy for her and also for himself, because he would be promoted thanks to her, hence the love, but he hated the fact that she would have to move away. She had him convinced in favor of the plan by shrewdly pointing out to him that he could always come and visit her in Tampa any time and check out the scarcely clad hunks hanging around by the hotel pool.

So with that out of the way, she only had one phone call to make before her new life could begin. In the evening, right after she had come home, she got on the phone to call her ex-husband.

He picked up after only three rings. "Hey, Nat!"

She wished he'd stop calling her that. It suggested a level of intimacy they didn't share anymore. "Hello, Anthony," she said a little ill-humouredly because of the 'Nat'-incident.

"What's up?" he asked. She could tell he was in a good mood. He always was when she called lately. It made her feel anxious because she suspected he wanted something from her. Maybe things hadn't worked out with the other woman like he had hoped they would. There had been talk about buying a house and having a baby. They had never talked about stuff like that and, quite inevitably, the thought left a bitter taste in her mouth.

She kept herself from spiraling further into those unhealthy thoughts and launched herself into the conversation head first. "Listen, Tony, my boss talked to me today. He offered me a position as hotel manager..."

"That's great!"

"Yeah, it is. But I won't be working my old job anymore."

"So where would you have to work then?" he asked immediately. "Surely, not too far away from here..."

"Actually the job is over in Tampa."

"Tampa, Florida?"

"Is there any other Tampa?" she asked sort of agitatedly. Perhaps her acquaintance with Stuart Bennett was a bad influence on her. She wasn't as forgiving as she once was.

"No need to get snappy with me..."

"Sorry, I... It was just such a long day. There are a lot of things to do. It's sort of ridiculous," as she said it she ran her hand through her hair, only now realizing what she had agreed to and how crazy her plan was. "I only have four days to move..."

"So it's already decided." Now it was Tony's turn to sound pissed, although all things considered, he didn't have any right to be. "What are you calling me for, anyway?"

"It's...," she started, but was quickly interrupted by him.

"It's the apartment, right? You want to sell it, huh?"

"Yes," she admitted sort of dejectedly. She didn't like the aggressive tone in Tony's voice. It didn't exactly imply that he would be very cooperative.

"I don't want you to move away," he said, which would have been cute about a year back, but now it was just possessive and crappy and not his place.

"You don't have any say in that any more. That ship sailed when you decided to cheat on me and start a new life with that woman," she said with more vehemence than she had thought herself capable of. That woman had a name, but she just couldn't bring herself to actually say it out loud. Not yet anyway, while she was still hurting and bitter about things.

"What if I want you back?"

Her stomach plummeted upon Tony's confession. "Now you want me back? Now?! That's kind of hard to believe. You just want to keep yourself all options open that's why you don't want me to move away..."

"Sweetness..."

"Don't call me that!"

"What else am I supposed to call you, sweetness?"

There it was again. His old nickname for her. She swallowed hard. It was unfair of him to stoop so low and try to appeal to her on an emotional level. They had been separated for more than six months godammit, so how was he still able to get to her like this?

"Tony, can't you just try to let me move on? I can't stay at our old place anymore... It's just not right..."

"So you just gonna up and leave is that it?"

"Tony, please, let's sell this place. You don't want it. I don't want it. What good is it to anyone of us anymore?"

"No."

"Just like that? No? Without any explanation?"

"As I said, I don't want you to leave..."

"That's selfish."

"No, I'm not closing the door on a chance that there might be an 'us' ever again. I won't give up so easily." Having said those words, he hung up and left Natalie with a bitter aftertaste in her mouth.

Now he wanted her back? She was angry and sad at the same time. Despite her better judgment she was crying and it was making her even angrier. If he really loved her, he would let her go and allow her to finally lead a happy life. Happiness was impossible living here. Everything about this apartment reminded her of him. They had picked out all the furniture and the colors of the walls together for crying out loud. How could she not be reminded of him in here? It was unhealthy hanging on to the ghost of their relationship. A relationship that had taken a turn towards unhealthy in the last years of their marriage. And what was even more unhealthy now, was her staying and trying to work out what she had done to deserve to be cheated on in that way. He had just discarded her like a toy he had grown tired of and moved on to the next woman. Like he had used her up or she had reached her expiration date... Whatever! To hell with him!

To hell with this apartment! To hell with the money! If she couldn't sell this place, she would just have to lower her standards a little. Maybe buy a smaller car, rent a smaller house. She could do that. She spent most of her time working anyway.

* * *

Finally being home from the road was a blessing. It meant that he no longer had to put up on a daily basis with people he could barely tolerate. It wasn't like he hated all his colleagues. Hate was such an extreme word. It implied caring. He didn't care about some of them. He was indifferent to them.

Of course there were also a lot of people among them who had a good head on their shoulders, those he was glad to pass his time with. The ones he tried to avoid were in general people who were too flashy and lacked substance. The airheads, the egomaniacs, the ones with the fake grins and the backchat... At any rate now he didn't have to think of them for an entire day and he could spend it however he damn well pleased.

Most of his days of he passed away from huge agglomerations of people, because he didn't like people as a whole, his friends however never bothered him. Wasn't it the writer Jonathan Swift who famously said: "I _hate_ and despise the animal called _Mankind but_ I _like_ the occasional _Tom_, _Dick_, and _Harry_"? Well, he wholeheartedly agreed with that sentiment.

Because of those slightly misanthropic tendencies, he enjoyed getting up early, even on his free day and go for a run. At 6 am he hardly ever encountered too many other people on the sidewalks of his Tampa suburb. He distributed the usual nods of course when he passed the same old regular dads who were watering their lawns in their business suits and chewing on a piece of toast. And then there was that wiry, slim guy he met every single time he went for a run and who looked like he was preparing for a marathon.

Today, however at the first cross roads, the one with the big trees right in the middle of the suburb, something exceptional happened. When he neared the crossroads, his ear-buds supplying him with the appropriate 'Guns and Roses' soundtrack to his morning run, he spotted a woman coming towards him from the opposite side of the road. She was wearing leggings that showed of her calves and he only noticed that because her calves were extremely pale and the leggings extremely colorful. She was almost as pale as his mate Stephen was. At any rate her complexion gave her away as a non-Florida native almost immediately. He smirked. She would end up with a nice little sunburn if she hadn't thought of sunscreen. It would look hilarious. Like she was wearing red socks.

She looked sort of lost too, because she stopped in front of the crossroads looking indecisively between all 3 roads she was able to choose from now. Someone decent, a guy with social skills to speak of would perhaps now have gone over and started small talk, but he was not looking for company, so he continued on his normal route without wasting another thought on that woman.

He continued to jog down the road, focusing on the music he was listening to. His feet were in perfect sync with the drums of the song. The sun was shining. The air was clean. It was a good day. He smirked. His smirk fell however, when he felt someone tap him on the shoulder.

He jogged a few more feet before he slowed down. When he finally stopped, he took out one ear-bud and turned around. He didn't want to give of the impression that he wanted to engage in a longer conversation. Also he needed to keep running or his pulse would go down. Standing behind him, there was that woman again. Only that now she looked slightly huffier, because she had been trying to catch up with him. She was wearing sunglasses, but even before she took them of he realized who was standing across from him. Brown-hair, slender figure, that slightly awkward grin that seemed to come natural to her when she was off duty and not smiling that artificial, saccharine and in his mind, slightly perverted version of her natural much more beautiful smile.

"Natalie," he greeted her, his eyebrows drawing together in an expression that was somewhere between surprise and mild annoyance.

"Stuart," she huffed. Despite being slender she obviously wasn't in a very good shape.

"What are you doing here?" he asked matter-of-factly. Let's keep in mind that normal people would have said something like: 'What a nice surprise seeing you.' But then again he clearly couldn't be classified under the category of normal people.

"Going for a run obviously."

"So you came to Tampa just for that? A bit eccentric, I'd say," he smirked derisively and took the chance to retie his shoelaces. They had bothered him ever since he had left the house.

"No, I work here now. I got promoted to General Manager. I'm in charge of my own hotel now. Well, strictly speaking not my own, but you get the drift," she told him, jumping from one foot to the other. Obviously someone had told her that it wasn't advisable to let your heart rate slow down in the middle of a run. Clever girl.

"Good for you. Obviously you don't bollox up every reservation then, just mine...," he said and started running again, though at a pace that would be manageable for someone as nonathletic as her. He was willing to indulge her for a moment or two. Talking to her over the phone two weeks back had been all right. She was struggling to keep up, which amused him. Of course standing at 6 feet 7, he was still faster than her even if he jogged at a rather slow pace. Her side of the conversation inevitably got breathier.

"Just for the record," she took a deep breath, "that wasn't my fault, as you surely remember should you bother to actual think back on how things really happened... And would you please slow down a little?"

He took mercy on the huffy and sweaty, female being running next to him, although with a smirk on his face. "You're out of shape," he remarked with a malicious grin on his lips, taking delight in pointing out her flaws to her.

She didn't seem to be offended. "Yes, I am. I've only started running again 8 weeks ago."

"So how have you been going about this then?"

She shot him a confused glance, which made him groan. "Woman, you used to be a semiprofessional athlete back in college, so don't tell me you don't know how to get back in to shape after not working out for a longer period of time..."

"All right, I won't tell you then," she answered doubtfully. He rolled his eyes. Her apparent ignorance when it came to all things fitness presented a challenge to him. He was a big fan of doing things properly, so he couldn't just leave her to her fate, knowing that she was clueless. To his great annoyance his inner strive for perfectionism won out over his misanthropic tendencies and forced him to take charge of the situation.

"Did you first start out walking and gradually increase the time you spent running during your workout?"

She nodded dutifully.

He regarded her for a couple of seconds, obviously trying to make up his mind about something. "All right. So here's how this is going to go," he slapped his hands together. "We'll take it slow and finish the run. Time's a wasting. The huffy one of us buys the water after. Since I'm working out nearly every day and you keep making those incredibly attractive train engine sounds, my bets on you."

He started jogging a few steps and she didn't immediately follow, so he turned around looking very much like a drill sergeant with his reflecting sunglasses, his body hugging black shirt and his equally black shorts. "Move your bum already, hotel-girl!"

"Hotel-girl?" she asked quietly, not loud enough for him to hear. She did start to jog after him however. Their way led them through the idyllic little suburb that now was her new neighborhood and she was yet to explore. Contrary to her, Stuart seemed to know his way around there well enough. When the stitches in her side where getting unbearable and she no longer was able to answer Stuart's occasional questions without gasping like a fish out of the water, they luckily came towards a part of the neighborhood she recognized.

"My house... over there!" she barely managed to get out and he allowed her to take the lead, which made her feel very self-conscious because he got to see the full extent of her patheticness.

He wouldn't allow her to go in straight away. "Forgot about stretching?!" he barked at her and she almost dropped the keys to her house in the next gulley out of surprise. She felt silly for actually forgetting about it. So they stretched their legs in her driveway.

"You wanna come in? I owe you a bottle of water after all...," she motioned at her front door, unsure whether she should even offer something like that.

He shrugged noncommittally. It was slightly disturbing how he had barely broken a sweat and her clothes were drenched. Actually she shouldn't have asked him to come in. She felt disgusting now. But he was already unenthusiastically plodding after her. Through the front door they went, down the corridor towards her living room, well, what was supposed to be her living room and was at present a room filled with a lot of unopened transport boxes.

"Depressing," he commented her lack of furniture.

"I just arrived here last week and haven't had the chance to unpack anything yet," she called out to him as she disappeared through a door on her right which was where her kitchen was. That way she wouldn't have to expose herself to his reaction to her lack of furniture and decoration.

"What's in all those boxes? Cut up pictures of your ex-husband?"

She grimaced as she reached inside the fridge and took out two bottles of water. "No, I keep those in the bedroom. The ones in the living room are filled with CDs and DVDs."

"No stereo?" he asked her when he received the cold water bottle from her after she had come back to the living room. "Let me guess... It's in one of those boxes."

"Yeah," she grinned somewhat sheepishly and also endearingly. He sighed.

He sighed because he could feel his bad habit of caring about what happened to her expand to something far worse. He was starting to like her. Of course she was much too subdued for his taste. She was like Bambi. A little cute creature in constant need of help. Pity though, that unlike most little children back in the day he hadn't cared much for bloody Bambi, so discovering that he apparently liked her now, wasn't a pleasant surprise to him. He'd rather define it as a right bother.

"I'm strongly hoping you're not going to start complaining about not being able to listen to music any time soon. It's your own fault the place looks the way it does..."

His reproachful words didn't make her feel repentant however, they only invoked her fighting spirit. "Just for future reference," she looked at him sternly then, "you got to know me on one of my personal low points. I had just lost my Dad. After ten years, my marriage had ceased to exist from one day to the next. Believe me, I'm not a person who tends to complain a lot. When there's a problem, I try to solve it. Right now it's not so much that I don't know what to do. It's rather that I don't have the energy to do it," she paused for a second there. "Okay?" She asked finally, her voice on edge and laced with aggression.

He stared into her face for a few moments there. His gaze wasn't hostile, just very intense. "Okay," he said eventually, taking a slow sip from his bottle after. "So want me to set up your stereo for you?"

What? What was that now? Was she losing her mind? Perhaps her brain was oxygen deprived because of all that running. She blinked and stared at him with her mouth hanging open in surprise. "Erm... What was that? Would you actually do that?"

"No, I was trying to get your hopes up and then leave instead," he told her sardonically.

"But I need to shower...," she pointed out.

"Obviously."

"I need to shower because I need to get to work."

"How is that information relevant for me right now, if I might ask?" He emptied the last of his bottle and held it out to her.

"I didn't think you would want to stay and set up the stereo while I shower..." Actually she wasn't so sure she wanted him to stay. What if he had untoward intentions?

He frowned. "Why should the fact that you're showering somewhere next door bother me? Unless it bothers you of course..."

"It doesn't bother me."

"Your face looks mighty bothered though. Would you stop getting your knickers in a bunch?! I'm nowhere near interested in you and I'm not a sex offender. All I'm interested in as of right now is a definitive answer from you..."

"Sure, go ahead. Set up my stereo...," she said eventually, still feeling like she had stumbled into a bizarre parallel universe. The concept that he suddenly wanted to help her out was simply too difficult to grasp.

"So where is it?" He already started walking around looking for the right box.

"That one."

Her stereo was still in its original packaging and hidden away underneath two boxes filled with cushions, blankets and decorative articles. He got them out of the way quickly and picked up the stereo like it weighed nothing. She quite vividly remembered how she had lugged it off the moving van and how the movers had quickly tried to wrestle it from her grasp, seeing her all huffy and red-faced.

"Where do you want it?" he asked simply. She indicated a side of the room and he went to work. Despite her earlier announcement she was still standing there when he had already gone to work a couple of moments later.

"What are you waiting for? I thought you wanted to shower..."

His words snapped her right out of her trance-like state and she ran off to the bathroom. Twenty minutes later she was freshly showered and wearing her business outfit. She had yet to put on some make-up, but she had already fixed her hair in a slick ponytail and put on her jewelry.

Back in the living room a fully functional stereo and one smug looking Brit awaited her.

"Wow, that was fast!" she praised him and his complacent grin grew a little wider.

"Well, I'm not an amateur," he pointed out.

"Yeah...," her own smile took a turn towards thoughtful, "Why did you offer to do that though?"

Her question made him think for a moment. His brows drew together in a way that produced a crease between them. His face had something stern about it when he thought. Like contemplation angered him in some way. And since he undeniably was a rather smart man, she supposed he wore that particular facial expression a lot.

Eventually he spoke. "Music is important. It's a basic need, like the need for food or water. You shouldn't be forced to do without it. Especially not now." 'Not now' probably implied in her present state of depression.

So there. She had her explanation. She simply nodded. "Thank you," she said, becoming aware how he was starting to form a habit out of helping her out and her thanking him. Someday soon she would have to pay him back in some way or another.


	4. You Owe Me a Favour

**Author's note**: _Extra-quick heads-up. I'll be gone for one week (business trip) come Saturday, so you'll have to wait a bit for the next update. I hope you'll enjoy this chapter. Let me know._

* * *

_Relax, sunshine_. Her inner voice surprisingly came with a dark timbre and an English working class accent. Natalie made a face and pushed open the glass doors to the hotel lobby. Time to take stock.

At present they were three weeks from opening. It was her first day at work, she was about to meet her second in command and they would spend the day interviewing people for housekeeping and the kitchen respectively.

Behind those two-winged doors waited an exotic looking, stunningly beautiful woman who threw her a well-practiced smile. "My name is Rani Kapoor. I'm your assistant-manager. Pleasure meeting you," she informed her as she shook her hand. Her accent was British, but unlike Stuart's perfectly polished and very posh, indicating she had spent some time at a private school, or one of those other Hogwarts like places the Brits had. If Natalie wasn't mistaken, she was a few years younger than her, which led her to the conclusion that her _vis-a-vis_ was apparently and even bigger workhorse than she was.

The other woman's perfect manners and polite business façade didn't allow her to make any guess at all about her character, even as they chatted for a couple of minutes about their respective business backgrounds and capabilities. The only thing Natalie learned about her colleague was that she was ambitious and a hard worker, which were to excellent prerequisites when it came to their job. Personality-wise Rani remained a mystery to her though.

They agreed to distribute today's tasks among each other. Natalie would interview housekeeping and Rani would take care of the kitchen personnel. After countless interviews they were finally done and Natalie's face hurt from smiling so much.

She was looking forward to finally going home and stretching out on her couch and watching some TV. Only that she didn't have a couch yet, let alone a TV. So her on way home she took a detour and bought herself a couch and a flat screen. The couch would be delivered in three weeks, the TV, however, was something she could take home with her immediately.

Grunting, sweating and cursing she dragged it into her house and decided against her initial plan of setting it up in the living room. Without a couch that plan didn't make much sense, so she chose the bedroom instead. There she could at least stretch out on her bed to watch some TV.

After the TV was up and running she let herself fall back on the bed with a sigh. Only now she looked at her cell phone. One missed call from Tony. He had called a second time and recorded a message in her mail box. She didn't want to listen to it, but didn't have the strength to press delete immediately. Exhausted she lied down once again on her bed and closed her eyes.

* * *

Bad News Barrett was a gimmick that suited him rather well. Right now they were recording his weekly segment for the JBL and Cole show. He adjusted his suit and scowled at the camera. It was bloody marvelous he wasn't stuck with a stupid gimmick where he had to smile all day, he reckoned. This was so much more natural. He took delight in ripping Cody a new one, be it on or off screen. He finished recording his bit with a smug smile on his face and then it was show time.

Actual show time with the nose-busting and elbow-ramming and wreaking havoc. He loved every second of it and was therefore curious who they'd feed him for dinner today. He liked working with Johnny. God bless him for making the most out of that stupid Fandango shit. If Creative ever came up with something like that for him, he would bail. He'd run so fast, he'd make Usaine Bolt look like a bleeding turtle. Running. Awww, crud!

Nowadays that particular topic made him think of a particular huffy young lady with brown hair. He smirked discretely and started walking to his dressing room. He needed to change into his wrestling gear before the show started.

* * *

After days of work, work and nothing but work they were getting closer to the grand opening of the hotel. She had made a habit out of coming in earlier than everyone else to ensure that everything would go smoothly. She even did rounds with housekeeping, that was how important getting everything right was to her. At 9 she had her meeting with Rani during which they would go over the menu for the opening in two week one more time. The Indian woman had turned out to be quite an asset but they frequently had their differences. She shied away from calling those conversations actual arguments because they were much too polite to each other to ever venture in the argument zone.

Take for instance this one right here:

"I'd rather not do a big gala on the first night. It seems too overstated..."

"But it would help to attract people's attention. I thought that was what we were aiming at...," Rani interjected.

"I appreciate your input, but I'd rather make that evening something special and laid back. Something for our customers to enjoy. Maybe by the time we will have survived one year, I'll be in a more celebratory mood."

"So what do you suggest?" She could tell by the way Rani had asked that she was upset.

"Are you familiar with the Rat Pack?" Rani shook her head. "I was thinking posh cocktails, waiters with hoes-d'oeuvres and a jazz crooner."

"Do you know anyone in that line of work?"

"No, I only just moved here. Unfortunately I haven't made any connections yet..."

Rani raised a delicate eyebrow, but said nothing.

"But I'm sure I'll be able to figure something out..."

Because she was proud and a woman of her word she spent the following nights haunting the Miami jazz club scene, trying to find some talent willing to perform at the hotel's opening night. The trouble was that jazz clubs didn't open before 10 pm, so a couple of nights in she was dead tired, but she kept at it anyway until she found what she was looking for. At one point she was so exhausted in fact that she forgot that about the delivery date of her new sofa.

So on Thursday evening, she found a brand new, plastic wrapped sofa in her driveway. The sight of it made her foot slam down on the brake of her car just in time. With a sigh she reversed her car and parked it out front. For a second or two she let her head rest on the steering wheel, feeling so drained, she wanted to cry. Her phone rang. Reflexively she answered and immediately came to regret it. "Hey, Nat!"

"Tony," she more or less groaned. Of all people Tony was the last person on earth she wanted to be talking to.

"How are you holding up down there?"

"Good. Thank you. Was there anything you wanted?"

"No. I just wanted to hear your voice..."

"Not this again," she sighed. They had been over this a million times by now. He wanted to have her back, but she wasn't interested. How could she be after everything? She would never be able to trust him again. So she guessed she needed to spell it out for him one more time. "Tony, it's over. Why can't you just let me be? I want to move on. It's hard enough as it is right now. I'm trying to build a new life right here and all my energy goes into that, so I don't need you to make things more difficult for me by calling every other day..."

"It shouldn't be easy for you, after all you're making it hard for me too. You know where I am right now?"

She wanted to say 'hell', because she really didn't care to hear it, but ended up saying something else entirely. "No idea."

"Our old place..."

That was creepy and wrong on so many levels. "I'm sorry, Tony, but I'm afraid I've got to go now."

"Where do you have to go more important than this right now?"

"They are delivering my new couch right this instance, I need to have an eye on those delivery guys. I don't want them to bust up my walls when I'm not looking..."

With that tremendous lie she ended the phone call feeling even more exhausted than before. She couldn't be sitting in her car forever. Even if she stayed there, the couch would still be standing in the driveway and her ex-husband would still be showering her in unwanted attention. Did she mention he had sent flowers over to her office? In all fairness she had to admit that she hadn't forwarded him her home address, but with good reason. The reason was not to have him contact her there. If he wanted to get in touch, he could email her or text her. She just didn't want him to turn up here in Florida. She didn't want his flowers. That he had chosen to contact her through work was messed up enough already. He should have known better than to do that. Her work and her private life were two things that existed separately from each other and she intended to keep it that way.

She sighed again. Eventually she would have to get out of her car. Eventually she would have to sort out the chaos that was her life. She still held her cell phone in her hand. Clutched in her hand actually. She couldn't carry the couch on her own and it would be embarrassing to ask people from work. It would undermine her authority.

With her social life being as glamorous as it was, there was only one person she could ask and there was a big chance he wasn't even in town. She kept debating with herself internally whether she should actually give him a call, but ended up pressing the call-button on the screen of her smart phone anyway, despite that inner voice that insisted on telling her it was a bad idea. He picked up rather quickly. "Yes?" Hearing his distinct accent and the dark timbre of his voice provided a pleasant contrast to Tony's voice that had been pleading and grating on her nerves.

"It's me. Natalie."

"I know. Caller ID."

"Right. Listen, erm... Stuart."

"Before you go on, let me guess what this is about..."

His interruption derailed the conversation immediately. It had been off to a shaky start anyway, now she was struggling for something intelligent to say and was only able to form stupid vowel-like sounds and say 'yes', which sounded a bit like that. "Ooooh, ermmm... Yes."

"You need a favor."

"How did you... I mean, I didn't even say that I needed one."

"Well, do you?"

"God, yes!" she sighed, which seemed to amuse him because his smirk was audible over the line when he spoke next.

"So what is it?"

"Remember how when you were last here I didn't have a couch..."

"Yes..."

"Well, I ordered myself one and they delivered it today. But since I wasn't home, they simply placed it in the driveway and left."

"Nice place for a couch. Should come in handy, especially now in summer. You'll make a lot of new friends quickly."

"This isn't funny," she pointed out.

"Actually, it is a little. When you order something, you need to make sure they deliver it to the place where you actually want it, Natalie. It puzzles me that you, a grown, independent woman, weren't aware of such an important detail," he said with a huge amount of condescension and derision.

"I'm aware I screwed up, okay?" she massaged the bridge of her nose tiredly. She wouldn't be talking to him like that if she wasn't stressed out, but she had been pestered by her ex-husband and on top of that she was also feeling the responsibility over the success of the hotel opening weighing on her shoulders.

"The aggression in your voice makes me suspect you've had a bad day..."

"I'm not being aggressive," her voice was shrill and belying her words.

"Sure, sunshine," the amount of irony in this statement was almost scandalous. "Well, you never answered my question. Did you?"

"Did I what?"

"Have a bad day..."

"Don't ask... The mother of all bad days..."

"What happened?"

"Oh, the usual. People weren't listening to anything I told them, which resulted in some stupid mistakes being made and them blaming others in their place. Just the usual craziness," she told him, unwilling to go into the details about her chaotic day at work.

"You make being the boss sound very appealing."

She let out a huff in agreement. "Sure... It's a blast. You should try it too."

"Maybe someday."

"Are you going to help me now?"

"Who says I'm even in town right now?"

"Are you?"

"Yup."

"So?"

"S'gonna need more than just one man to carry a couch..."

"I can help you...," she suggested.

"How big is this famed couch of yours?"

"About 6 foot something..."

He let out an amused snort. "I think you're over-estimating your own strength a bit there. Unless you've decided on a career in power-lifting in my absence..."

"I haven't," she answered darkly, clearly nonplussed by the fact that he took so much delight in toying with her.

He seemed to sense that too, because he suddenly decided to stop playing with her. "You do realize that you'll owe me a massive favor for that..."

"Does that mean you're going to help me?" she asked, not able to keep the delighted hopefulness out of her voice.

"Have you seen _The Godfather_? That's the kind of favor we're talking about...," he told her, ignoring her hopefulness or rather trying to quench it.

"Stuart, please...," she was ready to beg at this point.

"All right, but I think I'd better bring Stephen along. Unlike me, he's rather big on the whole knight in shining armor deal. He'll probably jump at the chance of helping out a poor damsel in distress. My steed doesn't ride without a cool lager though, so make sure there is beer in the fridge."

"Thank you," she breathed, feeling more grateful and relieved than she rightfully should, considering that he had her practically beg for his help. Nevertheless something was finally going right. Her couch problem would be taken care of. With that positive and uplifting prospect in mind, she quickly drove over to the supermarket and got a couple of cold bottles of lager. She was barely back at her house and had just enough time to put the bottles in the fridge and change into a comfortable pair of leggings and a sweatshirt, when someone rang her doorbell. She ripped open the door and sure enough there were Stuart and Stephen.

Stuart waved a mock salute at her with his index finger and middle finger as if he was tapping a non-existent hat in deference. "Sunshine."

"Hi," Stephen said behind him and extended his hand to her when Stuart had stepped aside. "Stephen Farrelly."

"I know. We've met before. Natalie York. Nice to meet you...Again," she smiled at him.

"We met before?" he frowned. "I'm sorry I..."

"It's not your fault. It was a not a very memorable meeting. I checked you into your room at the hotel a couple of weeks back in New York..." The Irishman still looked confused. They traveled a lot, so consequently they also checked into a lot of hotels. "The one where Stuart didn't have a room booked?" she supplied eventually and finally saw a look of dawning comprehension on his face.

"Aaaah, all right! So that's how ya two know each other..." Stephen looked between Stuart and Natalie apparently trying to fathom what kind of connection existed between the two of them. He was probably rattling through the mental list people usually rattled through in these cases: Love interest? Friend? Acquaintance?

Apparently Stuart didn't like to be predictable or give Stephen the time to draw any conclusions. "Should I bake you two some scones to help this delightfully meaningless conversation along or should we finally take care of that bleeding couch in the driveway?" he drawled, entering Natalie's house without waiting to be ask in.

"Why don't you come in?" Natalie suggested ironically. Looking back at Stephen who was still standing in front of her doorstep she saw him roll his eyes and shoot her an apologetic smile.

"I'm sorry. Unfortunately Stu was raised by wolves. He's always like that," he told her sort of apologetically. They walked towards the corridor. He motioned her to go first, because with his huge frame walking next to her wasn't an option. The hallway was rather narrow and existentially important furniture like her shoe shelf didn't exactly make it more spacious.

"So you're a wrestler too?" she asked conversationally as they reached the living room and a waiting Stuart who threw her an ironic grin upon her arrival. Of course he also chose to answer her instead of Stephen. "No, he's my bloody pool boy. The Florida sun does wonders for his complexion."

"Excuse me if I'm bein' a bit forward here, but Stu here doesn't make a lot a friends for obvious reasons..."

"What the bleedin' hells is that supposed to mean, ey?"

"'Cause yer a right sunshine, ya are," Stephen told him before he quickly directed his attention back on Natalie again, "As I was sayin', not big on the socialisin' that one. So how come yer friends?" he first regarded her, then her sparsely furnished living room. Probably because he was wondering why his voice was resonating from the mostly empty walls like it did. There was a shelving unit, in it her stereo, her CDs and most of her DVDs. Well, the ones she had taken out of the boxes already.

"I guess you could say that he helped me out when I was in a really bad place and needed someone to talk to," she said cautiously. Somehow she knew that Stuart wouldn't be comfortable with her telling his friend that he had tried to comfort her over her dad's passing. Come to think about it neither was she. Stephen seemed and okay kind of guy, but she knew next to nothing about him.

"Helped ya out when ya needed someone to talk to?" the Irishman repeated with a frown, trying to reconcile those alien concepts with his friend's cheerfully misanthropic character.

"He really didn't have any choice in that matter. I sort of stumbled in his path, so you could say he was forced into dealing with my issues at that time," she added quickly. If she failed to fill in the blanks, Stephen would probably ask Stuart about it later, which would doubtlessly annoy the bad-tempered Brit. At this point she could afford owing him any more favors or this situation would turn into something gruesome comparable to the predicament of the young woman who owed Rumpelstiltskin her first born.

"All right. Enough of that," Stuart slapped his hands together. Just like Natalie had predicted, he was not too keen on allowing his two friends to discuss that particular topic any longer. "We need to get in the couch and then leave. There's a football match in half an hour..."

"A soccer match?" Natalie frowned. She would have known if there had been one, because she would have liked to watch it too. Apparently with her busy work schedule she had even lost track of soccer. "Who's playing?" she asked.

"It's a friendly. England against Honduras. Last game before the World Cup. Keep up, slow-poke," Stuart informed her in his ever so charming fashion.

"Oh, okay! The World Cup! I totally forgot..."

Stuart groaned. "How can anyone forget about that?!"

"Well, now I remember again and I want to see the game, too. So if you want you can watch it here, there is plenty of cold beer waiting for you in the fridge, as you so politely requested. That is after you carry in the couch," she shrugged her shoulders. "At any rate it's up to you."

He thought for a moment and also threw Stephen a questioning glance who nodded and shrugged his shoulders. "You're on," Stuart pointed his index finger at her. "But there'd better be food too."

She nodded quickly. "Pizza sound good?"

"All right. Come on, mate. We're working on a tight schedule here."

Natalie had always thought that having lived most of her adult life in New York, she knew a pretty impressive amount of swearwords, but apparently she had been mistaken, because in the next 15 minutes Stephen and Stuart swore a lot and that quite impressively and creatively. The couch's weight didn't seem to represent a particular problem for them. What did however cause some difficulties, was the fact that the couch was quite bulky and the corridor to the living room didn't leave much space to navigate. Surprisingly though the couch very eventually reached its final destination.

"Yer TV?" Steve asked after the couch was where it was supposed to be and he didn't find a TV set right in front of it. To his credit she had to say he was barely out of breath and if so, just from yelling insults at Stuart for moving too abruptly and impulsively with the heavy furniture, because he was so keen on watching England's friendly.

"It's in my bedroom. You don't have to get it. I can carry it over here..."

"Nope, ya can't. I'm gonna. It's jus' gonna take a sec. Which way?"

She pointed to her right, puzzled by his eagerness to help her.

"Anythin' in there ya don't want me te see? Last chance fer ya te clear ship," he grinned at her charmingly, unwittingly highlighting the enormous difference between his and Stuart's behavior even more. The Englishman was comfortable lounging on the plastic wrapped couch in the meantime. It was gentleman vs. curmudgeon.

She grinned. "No, I shoved all my bras under the bed this morning."

He winked at her before he turned to leave. "Brilliant strategy. Got me all the way through me teens while I still lived with me parents."

"Really? You hid your bras under your bed, too? Sorry, but you don't seem the type for... erm... bras."

Her comment stopped him from leaving momentarily. "Yeah, I had to get rid of me knockers because they always got in the way when I was wrestlin'," he joked self-ironically, scratching the back of his head sort of embarrassedly. Apparently he felt uncomfortable discussing the subject of breasts with someone he had barely met. She could relate. This conversation was slightly awkward. Awkward, but funny. It seemed to continue in that fashion too.

He grinned, feeling the need to point out to her he had been joking, because she had not laughed at his joke yet. "Naaaah, I was only messin', lass, it was more like socks an' knickers."

"I kind of figured that out already," she smiled.

"I need a knife." Stuart's gruff voice interrupted their tentative conversation and reclaimed her attention. Apparently Stephen took that as his cue to leave and take care of the TV.

"A knife?!" She turned around and looked at him with big eyes.

"Yeah, I was going to slit my wrists because I could no longer stand overhearing that ghastly excuse of a conversation..."

Apparently her clueless, rather unintelligent facial expression amused him. "Relax, hotel girl. I meant to use it to cut off all that plastic wrapping..."

"Yes. Right. Good idea." She disappeared in the kitchen and came back with a knife only seconds later. "Here, but be careful. I can't afford to buy another couch."

"Not worried about my safety? I'm disappointed."

"You're a grown man. I trust you not to stab yourself in the hand with a knife."

"Well, then I'd better not disappoint that trust." He winked at her. This marked already the second time a member of the opposite sex had directed a wink in her direction in one night when it hadn't happened to her in months. It made her zone out briefly. She stared at his back as he deftly cut open the plastic wrapping of the couch and started tearing it apart. Coming out of her daze when he shot her an expectant look over his shoulder, she quickly moved to help him. There was also some bubble wrap slung around the metal feet of the couch. Of course that had to come off too.

After they had finished unwrapping the couch, he helped her get rid of the by now superfluous wrapping material and stuffed it into the recycling container outside, while Steve set up the TV in the shelving system. Five minutes to go until the match. It looked like they were going to make it after all. At this point it seemed like a clever idea to uphold her end of the bargain and supply them with the promised beer.

Stuart was leaning against the kitchen counter behind her. He had not been able to separate himself from a piece of bubble wrap and was currently popping some of the tiny air filled compartments with his fingers as she got out some cold bottles of beer from the fridge. Zip-zap-zap-zap-zip. She placed the bottles on the corner and shot him a dark glance. He didn't stop.

"Give me that!" she said, pulling impatiently at the piece of bubble wrap of which he had grown so inexplicably fond.

"Why?"

"It's annoying."

"Brilliant," he grinned at her.

"I've got some bad news for you, Stu. You don't need the bubble wrap for that," she informed him with a cheeky grin.

For once his retort didn't come as smoothly as it would have under normal circumstances. There were several delaying factors. For one, she had for the first time shone him a little spunkier side of her character and, to his surprise, he liked it quite a bit. Then there was the fact that she had called him 'Stu'. Not Stuart. Stu. It suggested a certain level of familiarity and for some reason he liked that too. He grinned. Not sardonically or sarcastically. Just grinned and let go of the bubble wrap. "You're right, sweetness. I don't."

Her own grin fell. "Don't call me 'sweetness'."

"Why not?" he asked, taking a genuine interest now.

"Cause my ex used to call me that. I like 'sunshine' just fine."

"Does seem kind of unfair that bloke gets to have his claim on calling you 'sweetness'..."

She shrugged her shoulders.

"Didn't you like that name before?"

"I did."

"So, you want to bloody give him that as well? The satisfaction of ruining a term of endearment for you? Come on, luv...," With surprising gentleness he tapped his fist against her shoulder.

"It does sound different when you say it," she conceded.

"Ah-ha. I bet it sounds nicer."

"I didn't say that," she smiled and pressed the cold beer bottle into his chest.

"Game's about to start!" Stephen called from the living-room.

They hurried over to the living-room. Well, the short distance they had to cross to get there didn't call for it, but their enthusiasm sort of dictated a certain haste. Stuart let himself fall down on the couch next to Stephen, which left Natalie with no other option but to sit down next to Stuart. It wasn't like she minded particularly.

"So pizza?" she wanted to work out the logistics of dinner before the respective national anthems were played and it would be hard to focus on anything besides soccer.

"Anythin' really, as long as it's got cheese an' some form of meat on it."

"Well said, mate," Stuart agreed.

"Aren't you athletes supposed to be on a special diet?" she asked in surprise.

"Sunshine, it's football and we just dragged your couch all the way from the driveway over here, so right now no one bloody cares about carbs and cholesterol..."

"Sudden I realize the profound wrongness of me taking an interest. May I offer my heartfelt apologies for that?" she said, showing how effectively she could combine politeness and irony in only a few words. She hadn't actually taken offense at his words. She knew by now that if she did, any attempt of a conversation with Stu would be doomed from the start.

Also she would have deprived herself of the pleasure of hearing the following words from him that were only grudgingly uttered. "No need for that. Taking an interest isn't wrong as such. It's actually commendable. The assumption that we drink raw eggs all day and garnish them with protein powder however is preposterous."

"Duly noted, even though I thought no such thing in the first place," she replied and picked up the phone to order the promised pizza. She had barely finished the call when the game kicked off.

Suffice it to say, it was a very emotional one. The team from Honduras did seem to have a very eccentric interpretation of the word 'friendly', so the three people inside Natalie's living room wasted no time in yelling in frustration and covering the referee with abuse, because he didn't intervene as quickly and decisively as they expected him to.

Their frustration reached new heights when the game was interrupted for 45 minutes due to a storm in the Miami area. Luckily they were indoors and didn't have to concern themselves with the weather, also the pizza arrived around that time and provided a well-timed distraction.

"I'm glad we didn't get tickets for that shite," Stephen nudged his head at the TV, while he reached for another slice of pizza. The cartons where positioned in front of them on two big moving boxes, which provided a makeshift coffee table.

"Yeah, would have been a complete waste of money," Stuart agreed.

"So how come yer interested in football?" Stephen wanted to know, taking a bite out of his pizza and looking at Natalie with an interested expression on his face.

Quite unexpectedly Stuart came to her rescue. "She used to play back in college, isn't that right?" Apparently he wanted to save her the trouble of talking about her dad. She didn't know what to think about that. Was she supposed to be touched by his gesture or slightly angry at him for presuming she wasn't strong enough to talk about it? It had been a hard day, so she decided to feel grateful and suck it up.

"Yeah," she nodded. "Midfield."

"I used te play too," the Irishman told her.

"Yeah?" she smiled. "That's great. And you quit because...?"

He sighed. "It pains me te admit it, but I'm a far better wrestler than a football player."

"Passable... You're a passable wrestler at best," Stuart corrected him, muttering the comment under his breath. Both chose to ignore him for the sake of peace.

"We've all got our cross to bear. I feel your pain. Having made it big time as a wrestler must really be depressing," she said sympathetically and Stephen chuckled.

Instead of Stephen, Stuart took it upon himself to answer. And that with his usual amount of irony. "Ol' Pasty's all broken up about it, as you can imagine," his tone was rather derisive, "Boss-man's even hired a shrink to host weekly support groups. It goes a bit like this: Hi, my name is Stuart. My juvenile dreams of becoming a football player or possibly a fisherman have been shattered..."

"Did you just say fisherman?" she asked with an amused smile on her lips.

"Now what's so funny about that?" he glared at her. "What did you want to become when you were ten?" He snorted. "Let me guess... A princess?"

She smiled. "No, I wanted to be Indiana Jones... That or a vet."

Stuart had to actually grin at that. It was a grudging grin, but still a grin. "I have to give you some credit for that, but only for the Indiana Jones part..."

"Yeah, ya better do," Steve said to his left.

The match started again and with that they recommenced cursing the referee and the opposing team equally.

"There should have been a red card when Izaguirre kicked the ball straight into Sturridge's chest," Natalie shook her head, summing up the result of the friendly in a couple of words after the match had ended.

"At least there were no injuries," Stephen surmised.

"Frustrating...," Stuart grumbled.

They talked some more about the game, but eventually they had to call it a night. Thanks to the delay caused by the storm, it was already pretty late.

"So thank you again for helping me out with the couch," Natalie said to Stephen as she shook his hand.

"Any time, luv. Same goes for sittin' down an' watchin' a match together obviously. Would be me pleasure."

"Bloody brown-noser," Stuart muttered under his breath, though loud enough for both of them to hear. His rudeness let Natalie barely even frown any more, she had already accepted it as part of his character. Talking about his character - What would he do now? How would he say goodbye to her? Shenanigans like a hug, although common among friends and she did think of him as a friend now, were obviously out of question. She looked at him expectantly.

"Sweetness," he gave her a meaningful, long look, the expression in his eyes soft. This one word combined with his way of addressing her, held more significance than anything else he could have said with one or two sentences. It turned out she preferred his way of saying goodbye to a hug.

She smiled, genuinely and from the heart. "Stu," with that and a little respectful nod they bid each other goodbye.

She closed the door and looked at the empty pizza boxes in her living-room that was suddenly so very quiet.

Outside the two friends were walking towards their cars.

"So, are ya interested in her?" Steve wanted to know without wasting any time on beating around the bush.

Stuart stopped walking. "She's newly divorced."

"That's not an answer."

"We're friends."

"Still not an answer," Stephen insisted.

"What more do you want? You've already gotten two bloody answers from me... What is it to you?" Stuart glared at him from where he was standing next to his car. They were parked behind each other.

"If yer not interested, I was gonna..."

"No!" Stuart interrupted him. "You're not."

"Jus' 'no'? No explanation?"

"Yeah, just 'no'." The Englishman glared at him. He had enunciated every single syllable of those few words with a lot of aggression, which wasn't something that disquieted Steve in the least. It only increased his curiosity.

"All right. Yer aware of course that jus' 'no' isn't going te be enough of an explanation fer too long..."

"Bugger off!" Stuart said instead of a goodbye before he slammed his car door shut and drove off.

Steve watched him go with a grin. Eventually he looked back to the closed door of the house behind him and shook his head, that grin from before still in place. How very strange! Strange, but interesting.


	5. Misery Likes Company

It was the night of the hotel's great opening. Soft jazz music was playing inside the hotel lobby. A warm and pleasant breeze swept in from time to time through the open doors that lightly brushed over perfectly styled hair and played with the hems of a few cocktail dresses. There was laughter, the clinking of glasses, the atmosphere was laid back and relaxed and back in some dark corridor in one of those areas that were designated for 'staff only' Natalie was having her own personal meltdown.

Rani had called in sick. Of all days in the year to have the flu it had to be this precise day? Right now she was literally working for two and on top of everything else she had to occasionally show her face in the lobby to smile graciously and welcome the guests.

The reception desk was adequately manned by staff. The kitchen was running smoothly. She grabbed her walkie-talkie that was her direct line to the hotel's chef and spoke into it, her voice professional, but clipped, giving away just how much pressure she was under tonight. "Hello, Chef Antoine, we need another round of hors d'oeuvres, please. We are low on shrimp, salmon and mini-quiches."

"Coming up in 5," was the equally terse answer she received from the kitchen. She touched her forehead with her fingers, trying to feel whether it was sweaty or not. She felt hot. Luckily no sheen of sweat there. A waiter whisked past her, down the corridor towards the lobby. She quickly grabbed a flute of champagne from his tray and sipped it. It was pleasantly cool and the alcohol had a calming effect on her nerves.

_I need to get away from this madness, if only just for one night_, she thought, but she didn't have much time to hang on to that thought, because seconds later her telephone rang again and she was back to trying to solve problems and making it look easy. At the end of the night she still needed to talk to her boss and get to hear his opinion about the opening. Something she was not looking forward to.

The next hours she made sure the machinery of the hotel worked smoothly, trying to be everywhere at once. Somehow she managed to make small talk one second and juggle several different tasks the other. But an evening like this could never happen again. For her own sake, for the sake of her nerves, and for the sake of everyone involved.

She whisked by the reception desk. "How is everything going? Do you need help? Any difficulties?"

"Fine, Ma'am." "No problems, thank you for asking." "No difficulties at all."

Finally after hours spent in a flurry of activity, the long dreaded talk with her boss arrived. "Miss York, I have to commend you for a pleasant evening. The music was great. How did you manage to find such an excellent performer? I was reminded of Frank Sinatra..." How had she found a singer like that? By repeatedly driving over to Miami to scout the jazz scene there for an entire week... But her boss had already continued to talk. "As a guest I really felt at home and relaxed tonight, thanks to your team's efforts. Do give Miss Kapoor my best. It's a pity she's home with the flu tonight."

"I'll make sure to do that, sir."

After that talk Natalie felt slightly more relaxed. The lobby grew less and less populated as time progressed. When finally only a couple of guests hung around and it was around midnight, she decided to walk up to the bar. She briefly contemplated getting a glass of wine, she was a lightweight when it came to alcohol, because she rarely drank, but tonight she felt like having a glass of Scotch. It would calm her nerves, because despite the evening being finally over, she still felt somewhat jittery.

She desperately needed to unwind, even if it meant taking a cab home. Tomorrow she wouldn't have to work until the late afternoon and after that she had a whole day off... Should she send Stuart a message? He didn't seem like the type to get in touch with if you wanted to spend a fun evening, then again maybe she should give him a chance. Going out with her colleagues really didn't appeal to her. But contacting the bad-tempered Brit could not always be her default go-to-option. He had a busy schedule and perhaps she was getting on his nerves. Was getting on his nerves really possible when they hadn't heard from each other in more than ten days?

Perhaps she should try to make friends with people who not only were aware of social etiquette, but also respected its conventions. People who wouldn't be rude all the time and weren't quite so difficult to deal with. But if she wanted to have someone polite to talk to, she could just stay here at the hotel and fully immerse herself in all that pretentious, well-mannered politeness going around. She really needed a break from that. If anything, spending time with Stuart surely was a break from normalcy. Well, her normalcy anyway.

"_Are you in town tomorrow night?_" she quickly wrote before she could change her mind.

The bartender placed the glass of Scotch in front of her. It looked beautiful as it stood there. The amber liquid inside, the condensation water slowly trickling down its sides and the ice cubes floating around in it. Pity that it tasted so vile.

Her cellphone let out a single hum that claimed her attention. He had already answered. "_Why? Do you need someone to lug around more of your furniture? In that case, I'm not available._"

She smiled. "_No, I just wanted to go out... We had our grand opening tonight. I really need to get out and have some fun and I was wondering if you wanted to come_."

"_Who's going_?"

She hesitated. "_Just you and me. I don't know anyone outside of work yet. You can bring someone if you want to.._."

"_Is that you trying to get me to agree to go on a date with you?_" His texting style was just as straight forward as the way he talked.

She briefly contemplated her answer and went for the safest and probably most boring option. "_No, I just felt like I needed to get out of here... I've been spending way too much time at work lately. I barely remember what the real world is like.._."

"_Well, for one thing when you go out there and you'll discover you won't find any mint-flavored chocolate on your pillow._..," he replied.

"_And probably less professional, fake politeness too. I so need a dose of reality_."

"_You've definitely come to the right man for that then_..."

"_I thought so too. That's why I texted you... So what can you do around Tampa for fun?_"

"_Fun? Got forbid I knew anything about that... If you want to spend time at a club, count me out. Waste of time_," she was actually hearing his voice in his head as she read his reply. It made her smile and take a sip from her drink.

"_You don't dance_?" she wrote, though she wasn't keen on going to a club either. Still she was curious to know why he apparently abhorred the thought so much.

"_No, dancing in itself is acceptable. I'll let you in on a secret, sunshine, clubs are nothing but cesspools populated by sexually frustrated people in search of a mating partner_..." His replies came pretty quickly and given the lateness of the hour, she assumed he was at some town, in some lone hotel room and bored out of his skull. She was under no illusions that he would have partaken in a conversation through texts on the cell phone under different circumstances.

"_So no clubbing. Got that ;-) Any other aversions I should be aware of_?"

"_Karaoke._.." Her phone hummed with each answer he sent.

"_Huge agglomerations of people._.."

"_Except at sports events and concerts of course._.."

"_Fun parks, carnivals and the likes... The list goes on._.."

"_I can imagine. And there I was thinking about heading over to Disney World with you._.."

"_For your sake I hope you're joking_."

"_I am. :-) So if I promise that we'll do none of the above, are you in_?"

"_May I point out to you that we still haven't figured out what to do?_"

"_Does it matter? I think we will be able to work something out_," she typed and waited for his reply with bated breath.

It came after a minute or so. "_All right. Count me in then. Your house. 8 pm._"

"_Oh, and a word of advice. If you don't want to start off the evening on a bad note, don't make me sit around and wait because you were unable to get ready at the appointed time._.."

She smiled as she typed her response. "_You really think I'm that type of girl_?"

"_No..._," and with some delay he added the following words. "_It was just a precaution._.."

No more messages afterward. Typically him. She took a sip from her whisky and made a face at its bitter taste.

* * *

He was there at precisely 8 pm. On the dot. A stiff knock on her door. A no-nonsense 'hi' before he brushed past her and entered her house, again without waiting to be asked in.

He had come alone, she noticed. He wore a nice shirt, cologne, dark blue jeans, shiny black shoes. He looked... handsome. Yeah, that was the word her brain supplied her with. Despite the crooked nose and his big ears. She had noticed those attributes about him before, but they somehow blended into the background now thanks to his forceful and energetic nature. Handsome, yeah, definitely.

Now she felt self-conscious about her own outfit. Her simple jeans and the black see-through tunic, under which she wore are black camisole. The tunic had some sparkly applications along the neckline, apart from that she was dressed down. Flat shoes. She had no idea yet what she wanted to do tonight, so she had prepared for every eventuality.

"Looks like moving in gradually is working out nicely for you, huh?" he asked her as she stepped next to him. He was obviously alluding to the fact that even though the living-room was now fully furnished, she still hadn't unpacked all the transport boxes. Some of them were still cowering timidly in a corner over there, containing more of her DVDs, CDs and books.

"I've barely had a day off since I moved here," she replied. "So I either do it like this or not at all."

"So what did you have in mind for tonight?" he turned towards her, changing the topic abruptly.

She shrugged. "No idea? Getting a tattoo, drag racing, bull riding, eating fugu for dinner..."

He actually smirked at her comment. "Wanna guess which one of the above I've already done?" he lightly nudged her shoulder which made her grin in return.

"You're not that much of a mystery after all. You know that your tattoos peek out a little bit from underneath the arms of your T-shirt when you wear one, right?" she said giving him a sidelong glance.

"You've noticed that?"

She nodded. "Sure, I have. What are they by the way?"

"Google them."

She made a face. "Nooooooo, I don't want to Google your tattoos. That's strange. I want to get to know you like a normal person."

"So you expect me to take off my shirt for you?" He raised his eyebrows. "Not gonna happen, hotel girl."

"This is Florida, Stu. I have seen more shirtless men than I could count this week. I'm going to see them eventually."

"Well, good luck with that then...," he retorted, his northern accent making the word 'luck' sound very distinct. He threw her an unnerving grin. The suggestion he made next, though, was even more unnerving than his grin. "Seeing as we're kind of stuck on the whole tattoo theme, why not go with that?"

"I'm...erm... I'm not sure... I always wanted one, but... erm... You know..."

She really should have been more eloquent or decisive then, because about half an hour later she was sitting inside his car that was parked out front a tattoo parlor in down-town Tampa. But that was probably what being friends with him entailed. He wasn't hesitant about things. He thought about them and then he either did them or he didn't and he seemed to be under the impression that he needed to convert his friends to living by that philosophy as well.

"Are we going to get out or what?" he asked.

"You know that I've been wanting to do this for 15 whole years...," she said in a voice that wavering between timidness and excitement.

"What's been keeping you?" he asked, while his fingers were drumming on the steering wheel impatiently.

"Well," she licked her lips, "for one I was never able to decide on a design and then there was the fact that Tony didn't like them..."

"So basically excuses," he concluded.

She looked at him in the dim light of the car, her eyes sparkling madly. "You know what? I think I'm finally going to go through with this. Let's go! Let's do this!"

Her sudden enthusiasm propelled her through the door of the tattoo shop. It even got her as far as picking out a design and choosing the right spot for the tattoo, which happened rather quickly.

"Your first one?" the tattoo artist asked while he prepared his instruments.

"Yeah, first time," she answered and gave the him a shy smile.

He had led her into his own little room in the back. The studio had several people working there. Everything was clean and smelled of disinfectant, reminding her ever so subtly of a dentist's office. Well, if the dentist was slightly unorthodox and tattooed all over.

She had begged Stuart to come along and that was why he was sitting right next to the tattoo chair in an uncomfortable looking plastic chair.

"Does it hurt a lot?" she looked between Stuart and the tattoo artist who still had his back turned to her, preparing the tattooing machine, the needle and the ink.

"Depends," he replied.

'Depends' was a fairly unsatisfying answer for someone about to get a tattoo done. She frowned. "Can you maybe elaborate?"

"Come on, sunshine, how much is it gonna hurt really? I've got both of my upper arms covered in ink. And you're going to get an area done 'bout as big as your palm. Don't be a bleeding coward," Stuart told her gruffly.

"Right. Erm... That and also the amount of pain you feel varies from person to person," the tattoo artist informed her, the tattooing machine now humming quietly in his hand. No way back now. The spot right over her hipbone was exposed and covered in disinfectant. A cold gust from the air conditioning swept over her skin and made goose bumps spread on it. She wanted to say something like 'eeeeeeek' now, but didn't because she was a grown woman and she really wanted to go through with this.

"Chin up!" Stuart said next to her. She gasped a little when she felt his strong fingers wrap around her hand that was hanging from the side of the chair sort of limply. Her palm was sweaty and cold and his hand was warm. She tore her eyes away from her own hand to look at his face. Her mouth was still forming that 'oh' of surprise. He was being supportive and holding her hand. That was unexpected.

"Like a slippery, cold fish," he drawled, but didn't show any inclination of letting go of her hand despite that. "Come on. Let's get this over with already. I don't know 'bout you, but I don't feel like spending the whole night here. And by the way, if the pain gets too much," he winked at her, "you can squeeze my hand and start that 'uh' 'uh' 'ah' 'ah' breathing stuff..."

"That's for during labor," she replied with a frown.

"How would you know? You're not preggers, are you?" Stuart shot back.

"Me? No. Not unless something like pollination works on humans," she smiled.

"You're even more pathetic than I suspected."

"Thanks, so kind of you," she drawled.

"Coming back to the pain topic from earlier," the tattooer interjected with a grin, "we've got our own custom gags for that..."

Natalie looked at him, first with huge eyes wide open in shock, then with an ironic grin on her face. He was making fun of her now too. She didn't like people ganging up on her, so she got herself together and put on a brave face.

"The only gag we're going to need," she said, choosing her words wisely, "is to stop him from making those snide remarks all the time..."

The tattooer grinned. She gave him a final nod and with that he went to work.

It turned out that she did have to squeeze Stuart's hand from time to time, especially when they came closer to the hipbone area. No fun. But apart from that she never complained. She even managed to make conversation with the two men the whole time through.

"And we're done. Have a look at yourself in the mirror," the tattooer announced.

She hopped off the chair on wobbly legs and looked herself over in the mirror. Right above her right hipbone there was the silhouette of a tree now, done completely in black ink. Its branches seemed to bend a little in the breeze and some of its leaves were scattered by it.

"Spiffy," Stuart commented after he had whistled through his teeth in approval. Apparently hell would freeze over any second, or that was what you had to do to get a compliment from the gruff Englishman. Luckily for her, she wasn't that much dependent on his praise or else she would have quickly run out of space for tattoos. Also, at work they would probably frown upon the idea of her covering her whole body in tattoos.

The tattooer motioned her to sit down in the chair again. He gently pressed a bandage to her skin and started rattling off care instructions. "Take of the bandage in a couple of hours. Always wash your hands before touching the tattoo. Wash it off gently, pat it dry. No rubbing. Also apply some lotion from time to time in the next couple of days. No scratching the tattoo even if it itches. That's part of the healing process. Oh, and no baths or soaking for the next couple of weeks, got it?"

"Relax mate, in case she forgets, I know the drill," Stuart smirked.

They stepped out on the street after having said their goodbyes to the tattooer.

"I didn't think you'd go through with it," Stuart told her, once outside. "I'm proud of you, Nat," he said with grudging respect. "So how does it feel finally making good on something you've promised yourself to do all along?"

"Good. Thanks for the moral support in there," she said, trying not to mention the fact that he had held her hand and she had liked it too explicitly.

"Any time, luv."

Again he was being less gruff and ill-humored than she had expected him to be. She felt like something was up. It made her suspicious.

They strolled down the street together for a while aimlessly and in comfortable silence. There were loud voices, music and laughter coming from a bar a couple of feet away and Natalie's demeanor changed from relatively calm and relaxed to excited little puppy dog in a matter of seconds. A sign outside the place proclaimed it to be a pirate bar and it was done up as such, with barrels, fisher nets and anchors.

Of course Stuart made the mandatory sarcastic comment about that which she shot down with the words: "It's a pirate bar. You'll fit right in with your beard and your scowl, so get over yourself already..."

Quite predictably, thanks to her words, he scowled some more and didn't move, so she tried a new approach. There was music coming out of the bar. She took his hand and actually tried to drag him towards the source of that music. Of course a man of his size and stature wouldn't allow himself to be dragged anywhere against his will.

She had never tried to charm him into doing anything he didn't want to do, mainly because she was afraid of what he would say or do to reject her. Somehow she couldn't see him letting her down gently, but at this point of their friendship that didn't scare her too much anymore. To a certain extent he had become more predictable to her and normally you were only afraid of situations you didn't know anything about or of things that were out of your control. Right now she could say that she already knew him fairly well. At least when it came to predicting how he'd reacted to most things.

"Come on," she dragged at his hand some more, but he only shook his head, so she let go of him and tried a different strategy instead.

The song they were playing was sort of cheesy. She knew it, Stuart knew it and he would probably point it out to her soon. Hell, she bet even whoever had put it on knew it. Nevertheless, she started dancing to it in a mocking way and making beckoning gestures with her hands to lure Stuart towards her.

It made him laugh and shake his head in disbelief and she almost had herself convinced he'd cave eventually when she collided with someone exiting the bar. Someone gropey and with a slurred pronunciation. Someone who had already had one drink too many.

She had inadvertently run into a young man who belonged to a group of other young men in their early twenties. They looked like frat boys on a night out. The one she had collided with, stabilized her by briefly groping her behind and laying his arm across her stomach in a gesture far too intimate for strangers. She felt and smelled his hot alcoholic breath on her cheek.

"Leaving already? The night's still young..." His presence at her back was making her feel claustrophobic and nauseous.

His companions vocalized their approval by cheering and howling with laughter. The situation had a potential of getting fishy quickly if someone said a wrong word or did something stupid. For a moment there she was afraid Stuart, who wasn't known for his tactfulness, would threaten the pack of frat boys or whatever they were, but luckily he was more considerate and diplomatic than she gave him credit for. He merely walked up to her to gently, but determinedly pull her away from that touchy-feely specimen she had had the misfortune of colliding with earlier.

"And who are you?" the gropey chief-frat boy said, looking at Stuart in surprise as if he had noticed him only now, which said something for his state of inebriation because someone the size of Stuart was a pretty difficult guy to overlook.

"Someone who wants to make sure she's okay." He threw a brief, but meaningful sidelong glance at Natalie to check on her. "Are you okay?"

There was a lot riding on her answer. For the frat boy it doubtlessly decided over whether or not he would be ingesting his food with a straw in the coming months or actually be able to chew it. She could see the tension in Stuart's jawline and the way his fists were clenched, all subtle warning signs that seemed to be lost to the young men entirely.

"I'm fine. But I don't feel like going in there anymore. Come on, let's go somewhere else..."

He didn't acknowledge her words at first, because he was busy glaring at the boys, so she touched his arm, which made him look at her instead of the group of drunk whelps. "I'm fine, Stu," she repeated and lowered her voice. She was desperate enough at this point to try her hand at humor to get him to calm down. "My honor is still untarnished. No need to put on your shiny amour and climb on your noble steed."

She could feel the muscles of his arm relax under her hand. He first threw her, then the group of youngsters a smirk. The difference between those two smirks was that the one directed at her was laced with something resembling affection, whereas the one destined for the group of frat boys was practically oozing with contempt.

"Let's go then," he said and laid his arm around her shoulders. They started walking off, leisurely without any haste.

Behind them there was some drunk cajoling going on for a while, calls of goodbye, harmless attempts of convincing Natalie to come back and pick them over 'the mean-looking guy with the crooked nose'.

That mean-looking guy with the crooked nose wasn't actually that bad, she couldn't help but think. His arm around her shoulders felt reassuring, as did the warmth of his body that radiated into hers from where their sides inevitably touched. Her nose caught a whiff of his cologne. He smelled nice. She smiled.

"And what is it you're smiling about?" His voice was gruff, but the look he gave her wasn't. His face was close to hers. She could see that a suppressed smile wrinkled the corners of his eyes.

"Despite that incident just now this evening isn't quite so bad...," she told him, which made him chuckle.

"You're a very strange woman, Natalie York...," he said shaking his head in amusement.

"Thank you, I guess. But I think I had quite enough excitement for one night..."

"So what now?"

"How about we head back to my house and I'll make us some sandwiches? I'm kind of hungry. Must be because of the tattoo, I guess."

"OK, then. Let's do that then."

When they sat in his car again and he was busy driving, she took the risk of shooting him a lingering sidelong glance. It was as if she could still feel the weight of his arm around her shoulders. She was wondering now. About him. Ever since that incident in front of the bar, she had seen a different side of him.

He was capable of being attentive and kind. He had even held the car door open for her. She had thought she had him already figured out, but it seemed there was more to him than just his sarcastic wit and his habit of voicing his opinion whether it appealed to other people or not.

"Any particular reason you're staring at me?"

His voice made her flinch. Shit! She had been caught. "No, I'm just bored, I guess."

He looked at her briefly, raised eyebrows and all, but didn't say anything, which was a small mercy. He focused on driving again and she turned her head towards the window, pretending to look outside. Her thoughts were starting to touch upon all sorts of crazy ideas that would have been completely out of the question at the beginning of the evening. Perhaps they still were now and it was better not to indulge those fantasies, but no matter how silly and preposterous they were, she couldn't help but wonder what it would feel like to have his arms pull her close to him and hold her. There was no use lying to herself, whether she liked it or not, she felt attracted to him. She leaned her forehead against the cool window pane and pressed her eyes close. _Stop it, Natalie! You need to stop before it's too late! You don't even know him and at the first sign of decent behavior you want to fling yourself at him? Are you even ready for something like this again after Tony?_

She knew the answer to this question. It was 'no'.

They pulled up her driveway, he put the car in park and turned off the motor. They got out and walked up to her house. The grass of her front lawn was burned, she noticed guiltily. That's what you get for working too much and not making time for small things. Her tattoo was starting to hurt, but she wasn't prepared to whine or say it had been a mistake. She held her chin high and her back straight. At least until she noticed the bouquet of roses on her front steps.

She stopped. Stuart loomed behind her. She knew she couldn't be standing there forever, just staring at the red roses on her doorstep. She had a nice evening, so of course it was time for the universe to ruin it thoroughly, because no doubt that was what was going to happen. Every good thing in her life was eventually ruined. Her hand trembled a little when she picked up the flowers and her face darkened when she read the card that came attached to them. She let out an exhausted sigh as she brushed past him to stuff the flowers into the trash can at the end of her driveway.

"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" she swore when the flowers wouldn't fit into the container and threw a desperate glance skywards. She tried once more to make the roses disappear from sight, though now with added vigor. Red petals circled down on the concrete pavement and stalks broke off as she brutally gave the roses a shove and they were finally and mercifully swallowed up by the trash can. The lid fell closed with a bang and she turned around to meet Stuart's questioning and somewhat shocked face.

Her mouth was pressed shut in a thin line and she just shook her head, signaling him that she didn't want to talk right now. She stormed past him, her fingers searching aimlessly in her bag for her keys. Eventually she found them and tried to open the door with jittery hands. They shook too much to actually slide the key in the lock. She swore. This couldn't be real. This was humiliating, sad, pathetic... It was a nightmare. She was so busy feeling sorry for herself that she did a double take when his warm hands touched her cold ones. He gently peeled her ice cold fingers away from the keys.

"Come on, sunshine. Give me those keys," he told her softly, while all she could do was stare at him. Having taken the key from her, he unlocked the door.

The open door was an immense relief to her, because it meant she didn't have to expose herself to the way he looked at her any more. What if those looks turned from concerned to judgmental? She wouldn't be able to take it. She stormed in, down the corridor, inside her living room. Her eyes wandered here and there. She was frantic, livid, beside herself...

The floor boards creaked behind her. She whipped around. Her eyes landed on him. He stood there at the end of the corridor, blocking two escape routes at once. The way back out and the door to the kitchen to his right. The expression on his face was neutral. The fact that he didn't say anything or make a sarcastic quip about her behavior was somehow shocking and unusual.

Ever since she had laid eyes on him she had stopped moving and stood there completely still, except for her chest rising and falling in rapid intervals. He took a step towards her and paused. She didn't run. Another step. She shot him a suspicious look now that he was halfway across the living room. He stopped walking.

"What's the matter, sunshine?"

She looked away, at the wooden floorboards, because she was embarrassed. "It's my ex-husband. I never gave him my new address...," she told him in a small voice.

"And you're shaking all over because...," his voice sounded closer now, but she didn't turn her head to investigate as to why that was.

"I told him I wanted him to leave me alone... That I wanted time...," she bit her lower lip with her teeth. The pain was supposed to keep her from crying.

"Because you still love him?"

Her eyes flashed angrily when she looked at him. "Love him?!" Her voice almost doubled over at the end of the sentence because she was so outraged. Despite her anger she noticed how he was standing right in front of her now, leaning slightly against the back of her couch. "I don't love him anymore! That ass-hole cheated on me with two different women while we were married! And if that wasn't enough already, he took off after the end of our marriage to live with another woman and have kids with her..."

She hadn't meant to tell him that, but there it was. An awkward kind of silence settled over the living room in the wake of her yelled confession. She couldn't leave things like that, she realized. After having said as much, she should just go ahead say the rest as well.

When she spoke again, her voice sounded fragile and tired. "It's just that I would have appreciated it if he had at least had the decency to actually leave me alone and let me lick my wounds in private, but for some reason now he wants me back... Now, after everything that has happened."

Thinking about that 'everything', a word so deceptively simple to sum up a messy and complicated break-up, she ran her hands through her hair. She would never feel the same way about relationships again. She wasn't even sure she could trust anyone anymore. How silly she had been to start gushing internally over how attracted she felt to Stuart when she was still such a wreck. Maybe an unfixable wreck. Why anyone would like to spend time with her right now was a mystery to her. And yet Stuart was still standing there, not going away. But despite that he was not saying anything. It was unnerving. She looked at him challengingly. _Say something!_

Eventually, after they had spent several moments just staring at each other, he held out his hand to her. She looked at that hand, that upturned palm and his unreadable facial expression, at least from her point of view. There was a crease between his brows, but his gaze was serious and soft. His other fingers twitched ever so slightly, as his index finger beckoned her to take his hand.

_He wants me to take his hand. __And then? What good will that do? Is holding his hand going to magically make anything better for me? No. But... But I want to. I want to hold his hand. It's better than doing this alone._

After what seemed like an eternity she finally reached out. He met her halfway. His fingers wrapped around hers and he started to pull at her hand ever so slowly, making her come closer inch by inch by inch. It was clear that she could stop this and say 'no' at any given moment or else he wouldn't have taken so much time, let alone been so gentle about it.

His arms slowly wrapped around her and her head came to rest on his chest. There, pressed against him, she could hear the calming and steady rhythm of his heart, feel his ribcage rise and fall as he inhaled and exhaled, smell the mixture of fabric softener and cologne on his clothes that tingled her nose in a pleasant way. She was conflicted, because part of her was angry and didn't want to be hugged whereas the other part of her that was sad and very much needed that hug.

After a while she laid her hands on his chest to slowly, but not ungently push him back. "I'm too mad for this right now," she told him apologetically.

He shrugged. "So what do you feel like doing?"

She shook her head. It was ridiculous. She couldn't tell him that.

"Out with it, luv! Hesitation is for sissies."

That sentence was so quintessentially him, she had to laugh despite herself. "All right. If you must know, getting drunk and listening to loud and angry music."

He smirked. "Seems like we deal with situations like these the same way..." His quip failed to amuse her. She just nodded grimly.

"So shall I leave you to it then or do you want company?"

She contemplated his offer for a few seconds. "Stay if you feel like it. You know that misery likes company, right?"


	6. In Vino Veritas Et Cephalgia

**Author's note: Thanks to my brilliant super-beta UntilNeverDawns. Always fun exchanging emails and swapping story chapters with you. You're the best. I'm not just saying that. Seriously.**

**xsmokeandmirrors: I think it's rather the fact that Stuart is like an antidote to Natalie's gloom and doom phase, which is paradoxical because he's not exactly cheery himself. But maybe it's just that.**

**LivHardy: I've started reading 'Aria's Shield' maybe you've seen my review already. I very nearly didn't go to sleep at all last night. I'm glad you like my story as well :-)**

**On to our weekly dose of BNB. He needs to come back from his injury quickly.**

* * *

She had chosen wine as their poison for that evening. Providing the music to her pity party was his duty. He had hooked up his phone to her sound system. Currently some record by _The Smiths_ was playing in the background. "You've killed me," Morrissey crooned and it made her smirk, because somehow that was very fitting.

Tony had killed her in a way. He had killed the trusting, naive young woman she had once been who believed in the illusion of marriage, monogamy and being able to live with someone for the rest of your life. Where had that gotten her? Well, she had once been a pretty confident person, talkative, some of her friends had said the life of the party. And now? Now she was just the shell of the person she used to be. It seemed impossible to go back. Because there was nothing to go back to. She had to put herself back together again. Being reminded of that stupid nursery rhyme about Humpty Dumpty, she had to smile a bitter little smile. She pulled the wine bottle from Stuart's hands and filled up her glass again. He just made a displeased face and that was that.

"Sometimes I think...," she paused and looked sadly into the empty space for a while, "I think that someone should have taken aside my younger self and given her a nice long talking to about love, realistic expectations and all that shit. If someone would have spared the time to do that, I probably would have been less naive. But who warns you about those kinds of things, huh?"

He nodded, so she spoke on. "Maybe I should have taken all those silly love poems more seriously..." that sibilant, polysyllabic word came out somewhat slurry, "I mean take Romeo and Juliet for instance. No happy ending. The guy drinks poison and the girl stabs herself. Or was it the other way round? I always get that mixed up..."

Stuart shrugged his shoulders.

"At any rate after all that talk about love a bunch of people wind up dead. How anyone can find that romantic is totally beats me."

"Let me congratulate you...," he told her in his raucous voice and made her turn her head in his direction. Her facial expression clearly said something like 'Huh?', so he chose to clarify what he had wanted to say. "You've just accomplished what barely anyone managed before you. You're even more depressing than the ever cheerful Morrissey," he pointed his thumb at the stereo.

"I never said I was cheerful."

"Well, you certainly had me fooled. I thought you were, when we first met."

"Before or after I started crying about my dad's passing?"

"You know I didn't mean that," he told her. "Before. When we first met at the reception..."

"You thought I was cheerful back then, cause I smiled at you prettily?" Her voice rose an octave there, because that was just too hard to believe for her. "That's my job, sweetie. I smile at everyone. I smile and smile and smile..." She took another swallow from her glass, feeling depressed by the thought of her job. She managed to put it down on the table again thanks to a bit of luck, but definitely not her supreme hand-eye-coordination. That had gone to hell straight after they had killed the first bottle of wine.

"So is that why you want to be friends with me? Cause you're tired of smiling?"

_No, that's not it_. She frowned, wondering whether she had actually said those words out loud. She shifted in her seat. She was sitting there, leaned against the armrest of the couch, her legs tugged underneath her. They were actually starting to feel weird, like pins and needles, because she hadn't moved them for too long. He was sitting a few inches away from her, to her left. For a second there her inebriated mind actually made the effort of contemplating whether it was okay to stretch out her legs, but since they had already hugged tonight, she supposed he wouldn't be that appalled by further physical contact with her. She actually mumbled some apologetic words about her legs having fallen asleep, before she stretched them out over his. For a second there he looked uncomfortable about it, but then shrugged it off. Just like he did with almost everything.

"So we're friends because you know that I don't expect you to always be in a good mood...," he concluded. Apparently he was much more sober than her and still able to keep track of their conversation topic.

"That's not it," she said quickly, regretting the fact that she had failed to protest the first time around. "You got it all wrong." She pointed her index finger at him. Her hand hovered in the air for a couple of seconds, rising and falling unsteadily before she laid it down on her thighs. "I'm friends with you because you're not fake like most people. You don't prance around telling lies. And I hate, hate, hate lies. Have I mentioned that?" He shook his head, shooting her an odd look. "At any rate...," she could feel the weight of his hands on her shins now and was caught off guard by it for a second. Her eyes landed on his hands. They were simply resting there without moving and didn't present a threat. She looked back at his face. "At any rate," she reiterated, "I'm friends with you because I think that underneath it all you're a good guy, albeit a little rough around the edges. But that's okay. I kind of like that..."

"Thanks for the compliment, luv," he replied. "But I'm sorry to disappoint you. I'm a lot of things, but surely not a decent guy." Having uttered those words, he emptied his glass of wine in one go and set it back down on the table.

"And who told you to believe that bullshit?"

He actually laughed softly when he heard her swear and shook his head. "Some things you don't have to be told. You just know 'em, luv."

"You don't know a lot about yourself obviously..."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Are you kidding me? So you're saying you're not a decent guy? Well...," she made a face, clearly not agreeing with his evaluation of his own character, "if you were a douche, you would have tried to get in my pants by now, instead of listening to me go on and on about how shitty love is... I mean talk about ideal scenarios, you've got to admit desperate divorcee with too much wine in her is pretty far up there..."

She could tell her words had caught him of guard. Perhaps she had been too blunt. A circumstance for which partly the wine was to blame and partly his bad influence, she supposed.

"I might be an emotional cripple, Stuart, but I can tell you that you're not one of the bad guys."

"An emotional cripple? Don't you think you're being a tad bit over-dramatic there?" he leaned closer to her and inspected her face like a concerned parent would do when suspecting his child to have contracted a case of the measles. She pushed him back with her hand on his forehead and surprisingly he only swatted her hand away and didn't attempt to break it as a punishment.

"Yes, an emotional cripple. As in lacking in self-esteem and any sense of self-preservation. Why else would I be drinking with you? This wine isn't even good...," she reached for the bottle and inspected it with a frown before she put it back on the table again. "I'm going to be so hung over tomorrow," she complained.

"Stop whining," he told her simply. "You don't see me complaining, do you?"

"That's because you're probably used to drinking worse, like nail polish remover and stuff..."

He laughed softly. It was a nice sound, because it sounded genuine. "Well, I'm afraid I've got some... Oh, crud! For the love of God!"

"What's up?"

"I'm regressing into my wrestler persona." He was massaging his temples like he was coming down with a severe headache.

"See! The side effects of ingesting too much nail polish remover," she grinned smugly.

"Oh, just shut your pie-hole, hotel girl," he told her good-naturedly.

"And just to think I said you were a decent guy," she tutted. Her comment quite predictably made him frown.

"Oh, get over yourself already! It's not like a pronounced you a freaking saint or anything..."

Her vehemence made him laugh. "Careful, luv. Once you ingest enough alcohol, you actually start sounding like me."

"What is so wrong about that?" she asked reaching for the wine again. Her hand was unsteady, so he took a hold of the bottle.

"Are you sure 'bout that, Nat? You said it gave you a headache."

"But it also makes me forget. So I've got a weigh my options here. I'm really hoping for your sake you're not trying to cut me off..."

"I'm not cutting you off. I'm just pointing out to you that you're pretty pissed at this point..."

"Am not."

"Are too."

She glared at him childishly and he raised his hands in defense. _Don't argue __with the drunk lady_. "I'm just saying... Maybe you want to stop drinking as long as you're in command of your own tongue... What if you start saying more embarrassing stuff? Proclaiming me to be a decent guy is already pretty bizarre in itself," he teased her, though in a good-natured way.

"Why are you like that?" she looked at him through narrowed eyes.

"Like what?"

"Defensive."

"Are you calling me defensive?!" he repeated incredulously.

She nodded vehemently. "It's funny how most of the time you're saying what you're thinking, but when it comes to yourself you're not being honest about who you really are..."

Again her comment made him frown. "I am being honest about who I am. I'm nothing but honest about it."

"OK... So maybe bad choice of words. Maybe you're not as self-aware as you think. Or it's just that you've got a distorted perception of yourself..."

"I wasn't aware that you're also a psychology major. Should I kick off my shoes before we start the counseling session?" he drawled sarcastically.

"Would it like physically hurt you to actually take this seriously?"

"Yes, actually it would. This is just your typical emotional, female dribble. Us blokes? We really aren't that complicated..."

His comment made her laugh. An actual laugh where she threw back her head and that came from the back of her throat. It pissed him off a tiny bit, but since she was his friend he sucked it up and just scowled at her instead of making any nasty remarks.

"Stu, honestly? Without meaning any offense, but if there had ever been an adjective invented to describe you, it would have been 'complicated'." Quite understandably that didn't particularly entertain him or lift up his spirits, so she quickly continued. "But that's okay. I like you that way. In fact I like you period." She grinned there and briefly patted his bearded cheek affectionately.

He actually needed a moment to recover from the fact that she had just touched his cheek and confessed that she liked him. After a couple of seconds he cleared his voice. "Erm... Right. Thank you, I guess."

It was the first time ever that he was at a loss for words around her and it had something utterly endearing about it. It encouraged her to go and say what was really on her mind.

"Seems like I need to say it again, since you're having such a hard time with this. I swear...," she actually covered her heart with her hand and raised her other one as if to speak an oath, which gave the whole affair something oddly festive, "this is not the Barolo taking... I'll gladly repeat that once I'm sober. You're a decent guy. In fact the most decent guy I've met in quite some time. " He was about to protest, but she only raised her index finger. "Nah-ah-ah! Unless you want to say 'Yes, thank you, Ma'am', you'd better suck it up."

He stayed silent for a few moments. She could see different emotions playing over his face, unfortunately her current state of inebriation didn't allow her to interpret them in any way. Eventually he nodded, though the expression on his face was wavering between self-disgust and defeat.

"Oh, don't go making that face, Stu!"

"What face?"

"Like you're trying to keep yourself from vomiting. It's not that bad."

"Oh, it's bad. You're obviously delusional and with you having such a high opinion of me, I'm bound to disappoint you eventually."

She sighed. "Congrats on that uplifting outlook on life... Unfortunately I've got a newsflash for you, Stu. That probably won't happen. Since Tony I've started to expect the worst from people, so disappointing me is pretty darn difficult..."

"I don't want you to expect the worst from me..."

"What do you want me to expect from you then?"

"Expect that I don't want to hurt you. At least not intentionally." Clearly that was the Barolo talking too. Under normal circumstances he would have never said that out loud.

She made face. "You suck, Stuart."

"I suck?" he echoed. "I'm bloody trying to be nice for once and I suck?!" He pointed at his own chest incredulously.

"Well, you've only got yourself to blame here. You're not supposed to say nice things right now. I'm trying to feel sorry for myself."

"Well, sunshine, I'm afraid that's not how this works. And by the way, I don't like you feeling sorry for yourself."

His words made her pout. Eventually she made some strange waving gestures with her arms.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I'm not sure. Something between 'Oh, get outta here!' and 'Hug me!' ?"

"You want me to hug you? Twice in one night? I'm sorry, but that's way above my annual quota," he grinned, trying to force a look of disgruntled disgust on his face, but failing.

"What's your annual quota?"

"I hug my mum for Christmas," he quipped.

She actually chuckled at that. It was a weird huffy sound, now that she didn't pay attention to how it sounded.

He found it to be quite charming and despite what he had witnessed earlier (namely the flower incident and her subsequent melt-down), he realized he was attracted to her. Simultaneously to becoming aware of his attraction to her, he noticed the weight of her legs that were still resting on his thighs. His hands hadn't moved and were lying on top of them. It would be so easy to make the next move from there, but something stopped him. Perhaps she was right and maybe he was a good guy after all...

"I think I'd better go now...," he said, slowly extricating himself from underneath her legs. "Before you want a peck on the cheek or something equally preposterous." He was turning this into a joke now on purpose. If he made it sound ridiculous enough, it would lower the chances of any of that actually happening.

He got to his feet with a groan after having sat around for too long. She actually had to crane back her neck to look at his face. She was worried, he noticed.

"You don't want to drive, do you?"

"I actually meant to walk. I live about a mile from here..."

"Why don't you sleep on the couch?" she suggested, getting up on wobbly legs.

"Early flight tomorrow."

"Good excuse," she said ironically.

"It's no bloody excuse," he said with slightly more vehemence then intended, throwing a look over his shoulder at her as they walked towards the front door. Actually it was, but she didn't need to know that.

"All right. Whatever," she replied. Her hand was resting on the door handle and keeping him from leaving for now.

"Why don't you open the door?" he asked impatiently.

"Cause you were right. I do want a peck on the cheek. Right there," she pointed at a spot on her right cheekbone.

He sighed. "You're drunk, Nat."

"I'm not drunk, not when I can still do this...," she told him stubbornly. She attempted to stand on one leg and managed to do just that for a full 10 seconds, which made her grin proudly and somewhat intoxicatedly. "See?"

"Yes, indeed, but only for about a couple of seconds, hotel girl," he smirked and quickly bent down to kiss her cheek. Her hands came to rest against his chest momentarily. He heard her suck in a breath or maybe that was just the alcohol taking its toll on his senses.

At any rate he still needed to leave. Now more than ever. He opened the door and the cool night air hit him, making him feel dazed for a second, though he was unsure if that feeling came from the wine. He was thinking about turning around and kissing her. And those thoughts were tempting. Very tempting.

"What about your car?" she asked calling him back to the present.

"I'll come and get it when I get back next week," he suggested.

"What if I don't want to see you next week?"

"Tough."

"I could just have it towed because it's blocking my driveway."

"Do you really want to find out what will happen then?" he threatened jokingly, stepping outside.

"I don't know. I guess I'll make up my mind in the next couple of days eventually," she smiled and slowly closed the door behind him.

* * *

Tony got home from working at his restaurant. It was around 10 at night. He had just emptied the mailbox downstairs, taken the elevator upstairs to the 6th floor where he lived. All fairly usual things. Where it got unusual though, was when he saw the tall, bearded stranger looming by his door. The guy didn't look particularly friendly with the disapproving expression on his face and his broad shoulders.

Upon spotting him, Tony had started preparing various sentences in his head like "Who are you?" or "Step away from the door!", thinking about whether he should go with a menacing or polite tone of voice.

The guy straightened up when he saw him. He was actually even taller than Tony had thought. "Are you Anthony York?" The man's voice sounded aggressive. That impression was probably enforced by the index finger pointed in his direction. Or perhaps the thick English accent. Or perhaps all of those things combined. Tony squared his shoulders.

"What if I was?" There was no use lying since he already had the keys to his apartment in his hands.

"Well," the other guy's eyes narrowed, "then I'd feel under the obligation of telling you a little something about how to treat a lady..." He took one step in his direction and Tony stood his ground, which he himself thought to be quite impressive, what with the massive, angry looking Brit right in front of him.

"How to treat a lady?" he inquired.

"In case you're just mentally rattling through a list of trollops you've shagged, let me save you the trouble. I said 'a lady'. So this is about none of them. It's about Natalie..."

A look of comprehension settled on Tony's face. "About Natalie, I see... So you are?"

"It doesn't matter who I am," the Englishman brushed the question off like a pesky little, buzzing fly with a determined hand gesture.

"It might not matter to you. But to me it does. See, if you're just a friend, this visit might turn out a harmless little chat," Tony wasn't counting on that though. Not with the persistent angry glint inside the other guy's eyes. So he continued. "But you're not just a friend, are you? 'Just friends' don't take it upon themselves to actually hunt down the ex-husband... So what you're going to do now? Knock me out or something?"

The other man's face settled into an angry sneer. He took a step closer to Tony, but didn't attack, though it was clear that he was tempted.

"I'd love to, but I have a feeling you'd call the police and though breaking your jaw would indeed be immensely satisfactory," there the guy actually smirked as if he was mentally imagining doing just that, "it would get me in a lot more trouble than it's worth. I just wanted to introduce myself and make you aware of my existence. Also I was going to point out to you that should you ever pester Natalie again, I won't give a damn anymore into how much trouble I'll get."

With that he brushed past him, ramming Tony's shoulder as he went. Tony turned around, still rubbing his shoulder as he watched the angry giant stomp down the corridor.

* * *

Stuart was on the bus to the next house show when he got her call. He had actually counted on her to phone him, just not that soon.

"I need to talk to you...," that much was already obvious judging by her clipped tone of voice.

So the little weasel had ratted him out. It had happened even sooner than he thought.

"Of course you do, hotel girl," he said ironically. Next to him Stephen's ears perked right up, thanks to him using that particular nickname. Judging by his mocking and also smiling face, the Irishman had already been able to connect the dots and worked out that he was talking to Natalie. Stuart scowled and gave him a shove, indicating that he should mind his own bloody business.

"I suppose you already know what this is about..."

"I do have an inkling, but please be so kind as to actually spell out for me what the problem is. I'm a wrestler, not a mind reader."

He heard her take a deep breath on the other end of the line. Perhaps he had laid it on a little bit too thick. "This would be about the fact that you paid a visit to my ex-husband and threatened him with physical violence. Ring any bell?"

"Yes," he answered simply and with a casualness to his voice as if he was just accepting glass of water at the dinner table.

"Yes?" she repeated incredulously. "Is that all you have to say for yourself? How did you even trace him down? I've never told you more than his name and that he's the chef and owner of a New York restaurant..."

"Please? You're honestly asking me that?" He let out a disdainful snort. "Welcome to the 21st century, luv. Try to keep track of progress, will you? We've got nice things like computers and the Internet. It's such a lovely ol' place, you can practically trace down anyone when you've got a name and some additional information."

He heard her groan. "Still doesn't explain why you did it though..."

He lowered his voice, because the next bit wasn't for the tour bus and the nosy buggers sitting around him. "Do you honestly want him to keep pestering you?"

"No, of course not."

"So tell me again how it what I did there was wrong..."

He heard her make a couple of more disgruntled sounds. "It just wasn't right. You shouldn't have. That's not how conflicts are resolved... You just don't hunt a guy down and threaten to beat him into a bloody pulp at his doorstep."

"Are those the actual words he used?" Stuart asked with a smirk. "I'm afraid he's gotten it all wrong. But I understand. The excitement and all. Actually I said I was going to break his jaw," he told her conversationally.

"Are you actually serious about that?" she inquired, her voice vibrating with suppressed anger.

"Yes... Yes I think I might be. If he won't stop showering you with unwanted attention, it's within the realm of possibility." He heard her inhale sharply, so he continued before she could lecture him again. "But I'm not a man without reason, only if he hasn't learned his lesson... And I gotta say things are looking up. I thought we had reached some sort of gentleman's agreement. At least that's what I chose to interpret the sight of him nearly soiling himself in front of me like..." She said nothing in response.

"Here's the part where you say 'Thank you, Stuart.'," he supplied.

"You don't actually expect me to thank you for that, do you? It was caveman-like behavior, unworthy of the man I thought you to be. Perhaps that was acceptable in the Stone Age, but not in the 21st century in which I'm pretty much aware of living, thank you..." He could hear her fast breath over the line. She had gone and worked herself into a little tantrum there. It was sort of cute.

"This is not so much about what kind of man I am, it's more about the scumbag you married. He's like some kind of viral disease you contract and can't get rid of..."

"You don't get to judge me for the mistakes I've made...," she fumed.

"No, but I do get to help you rectify them," he replied, equally incensed.

"And what, pray tell, do you think entitles you to do that?" she shot back.

"I'll tell you... It's because I care! All right?" His voice was harsh and stood in contrast to the words he had just said, or better more or less hissed into his cell phone.

For a moment there was silence. At least their conversation on the phone came to a halt, whereas he could hear whispering from behind his seat. Stuart looked over the headrest and shot Nemeth and Cardona a dark glance each that immediately silenced them.

"You think that you caring for me entitles you to this kind of behavior?" she finally asked, her surprised tone of voice still carrying some residual traces of aggression.

"Precisely," he replied, settling back in his seat.

"Let's hope it also entitles you to my forgiveness and my will to talk things over..."

"Wanna hear what I'm thinking, hotel girl?"

"As of right now? Not particularly... But I've got a feeling you're going to tell me anyway..."

"I think you're only enraged because you think it's what's expected of you. Some tiny part of you, deep down, is applauding me for what I did, because you would have liked to have done it yourself," he was aware he was pushing his luck there, but then again he had never been a particularly sensitive bloke. Why start with it now?

"You just keep telling yourself that. You know it was wrong."

"No, YOU know what I did there was exactly right. Guys like him don't understand any other language."

"Seems like we still have some talking to do about that...," she said regretfully.

"When? Tomorrow when I get my car?" he asked simply.

"If your car's still there tomorrow...," she said spitefully and hung up on him.

Despite her threat he wasn't particularly worried. She was too intrinsically nice to actually make good on that threat.

"Trouble with the missus?" Stephen decided to ask just then.

"What missus?" Stuart growled. "And keep your bloody nose out of my bloody business!"


	7. La Mer

**Author's note: **_A big thanks to Livhardy, Tammy and xsmokeandmirrors and last, but not least to UntilNeverDawns, my beta extraordinaire. I would also like to welcome those new readers and thank those of you who favourited and followed the story. As always feedback is very much appreciated. Next chapter. Enjoy!_

* * *

Another workday was nearly over. Unfortunately Rani was becoming an increasing nuisance. It was difficult working with her. She was always so strong-headed and despite Natalie being her superior, she sometimes managed to make her feel inadequate at times.

Their working relationship was a constant power struggle. Rani knew that Natalie was one for understated class, but despite that, her second in command chose to order expensive and over-the-top flower arrangements for the lobby, while Natalie would have preferred something less obtrusive. There was also the fact that her assistant manager frequently told the kitchen personnel to prepare extravagant menus, which nearly always required Natalie to talk down the chef, who was on the verge of having a coronary because of the pressure Rani's order had put him under. Trying to reassure him, she told him that she didn't expect him to whip up a menu worthy of star chef Paul Bocuse and that he was doing a good job just as things were.

At any rate, she had just come back from one of her talks with Antoine, which ironically was the chef's name. Chefs seemed to be under some weird obligation of having to be called some form of 'Anthony' obviously. She had just taken off her golden nametag and opened the first three buttons of her blouse when her work cell phone rang. She rolled her eyes, but answered the call nevertheless.

"There's a gentleman down in the lobby to see you, Miss York," Sophie, the girl from the reception told her.

"I'll be there in a minute," she told Sophie. She wasn't too worried about who that mystery gentleman was. Here she had hotel security to take care of troublemakers. She ended the call and picked up her purse from the locker. No use getting back in here, when she was already on her way out. On her way to the elevator, she was in the basement, she pinned her nametag to her blouse again, but left it unbuttoned. She looked less formal like that and sometimes when dealing with a disgruntled client that was very useful. And doubtlessly this mystery gentleman would be disgruntled. What other reason could there be for wanting to speak to the hotel manager?

The elevator doors opened and all the way across the lobby the first thing she saw was him. That smug bastard! How dare he actually come here? She schooled her face into a nice smile, hiding her irritation as she approached him, her posture straight, almost to be point of being stiff. As he heard her footsteps approaching, he turned around and took off his dark sunglasses, probably thinking himself very suave.

"Mr. Bennett, what an unexpected PLEASURE seeing you," irony was dripping of her voice. It was clear she wasn't being serious right from her overly formal way of addressing him straight down to the way she emphasized the word 'pleasure'.

"Miss York," he greeted her, his voice equally laced with irony. Still it was unfair how his accent made him sound a little like James Bond. Apparently he wanted to use that further to his advantage, because he grabbed her hand and executed a perfect hand kiss, which would have been nice, had she not known it was all done to mock her.

She pulled her fingers from his grasp. He grinned at her slyly. He thought she wasn't going to make a scene if he dropped by at her workplace. That was where he was mistaken. She didn't even need to raise her voice to tell him off.

"Let's walk," she suggested, pointing towards the exit of the hotel. "I assume I owe the immense, almost unbearable pleasure of your company to your deeply felt wish of wanting to retrieve your vehicle from my property..." Natalie supplied throwing him a hooded sidelong glance from underneath her long lashes.

"The car is only part of the reason I'm here..." he told her as they stepped through the revolving door and out into the Florida heat. He paused there, baiting her with the implication that there was more to his visit. It got her curious indeed. Perhaps his clothing was relevant when it came to guessing his ulterior motive, so she gave him a once-over. She had noticed earlier how he was dressed down, at least by his standards. Jeans and a dark blue polo shirt.

Nothing could have prepared her for his next words however. "I came to ask you to go fishing with me."

She forgot all about her manners and posh behaviour right there and openly gaped at him. "I'm sorry, but you came to do what now?!"

He pointed at his chest speaking very, very slowly. "Me..." next his index finger was pointing at her, "and you... fishing," the last word was accompanied by a pantomime of the activity, including an imaginary fishing rod. She had to bite her cheeks to keep herself from laughing. But she didn't have to do that for long. Any trace of amusement left her when she spotted his car parked right in front of the hotel. On top of everything it was parking in a strictly no parking zone. She hit his upper arm with gusto, finding out that besides being covered in ink, it was pretty muscular.

"You got your car without telling me," she said accusingly.

He shrugged his shoulders. "What did you expect? That I'd fill out a request form to have it back?"

"I guess not," she replied with an acerbic undercurrent in her voice.

"So?"

"What?"

"Fishing?" he said impatiently.

"I don't think I'm dressed for the occasion."

He gave her a once-over, taking in her high heels, dark blue pantsuit and her white blouse. He raised his eyebrows. "Guess not. Go home. Get changed. Simple enough."

"What if I don't want to go fishing?"

Obviously that thought had never even occurred to him. It gave him some pause, at least momentarily. "Why wouldn't you want to come?"

"Well, for one I don't want to kill any fish..."

"Then throw 'em back for all I care."

"So what's the point of it then?" she asked inclining her head to the left as she regarded him, while she shielded her eyes from the light of the setting sun.

He chuckled and shook his head incredulously. "She's actually asking about the point of it," he muttered, more to himself than to her. "The point, luv, is to actually sit there and wait for the fish to bite. It's an exercise in patience. It helps you calm down. Two things you would benefit from immensely..."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Obviously that you need to relax because you're constantly wired..." he answered calmly. Any other man would have seen the uplift of her voice at the end of the question as a warning to stop. He just ignored it and went ahead. Typical Stu.

"Whatever gave you that impression?" she asked, crossing her arms over her chest, the universal sign for disapproval.

"Maybe your phone call from yesterday..." he suggested.

"Oooooh, you really shouldn't have gone there..." she shook her head and threw him a mocking smile.

"Not ready to bury the hatchet yet?"

"Never."

He sighed. "All right. What's it gonna take?" The question was posed in a very resigned tone of voice. He had his hands in his pockets and his sunglasses back on.

"I don't know..." Her foot was tapping out an aggressive staccato rhythm on the pavement. It was only a small outlet for the aggression she momentarily felt towards him. It was a rather huge amount of irritation. Despite that right now she was torn between hugging him, because they hadn't seen each other in quite some time and slapping him, because he was just getting on her nerves that much. "An apology would be nice..."

"I'm certainly not going to apologize," he scoffed.

"Then I'm afraid I'm certainly not going to come fishing with you," she shot back.

"Good."

"Fine. Have a nice day then," she said with an ice-cold smile on her face that would have probably even chased a chill down a penguin's spine. She gave Stuart a stiff nod in parting and directed her brisk steps back to the hotel entrance. Unfortunately her grand exit didn't end up being that grand. She had only gotten as far as a few feet when she stopped and let out a disbelieving groan. She didn't want to leave him standing there like this. A glance over her shoulder confirmed that he was still there, although he was now leaning against the hood of his car, some black SUV. It was ever so slightly disconcerting how he was able to keep his face so neutral and look so detached and nonchalant about the whole situation while she was fuming. Her nostrils flared a little when she walked back to him. Not only was she admitting defeat, in a way she had to acknowledge that despite his intrinsically irritating nature, she just couldn't stay mad at him.

"Back for round two?" he summed up the situation.

"Yes, well. Despite my better judgement," she told him in a moody and ill-humoured voice.

"And now?"

"You should try to apologize."

He sighed deeply. "Still not gonna happen. But... I reckon that for the sake of peace I could at least tell you that I understand your point of view..."

"So?"

"Violence is bad." Even someone unpractised would have been able to detect the massive amount of irony in that statement. It made her scowl.

"Look, you might not approve of my methods, but you gotta admit my intentions were rather decent," he tried to reason with her, because seeing that atypical scowl on her face was really disconcerting.

"And what, pray tell, were your freaking intentions?"

"I wanted to help you out." His body language and his tone of voice confirmed that for once he was completely honest about that.

Her features softened somewhat. "Really?"

"Yeah, just like with the stereo, the couch and everything else..." he frowned. "Come to think of it this is growing into a very bad habit somehow." A crease formed between his eyebrows while he was obviously contemplating how the bad habit of continuously helping her out could be broken.

"Well, do you want to know about the bad habit I've formed recently?"

He raised an eyebrow and looked at her. She supposed it meant 'talk'.

"I've seemed to have developed a really weird forgiving streak. I can't help but always look for the good intention behind someone's abrasive behaviour."

"I hear fishing is a good therapy against that."

His remark made her laugh against her better judgment.

"All right. So what type of clothes would be appropriate for fishing?" she finally asked, admitting her surrender.

"How about jeans and a T-shirt?"

After the clothing issue had been resolved, they agreed to meet at his house in half an hour. He gave her his address, which surprisingly was really only about a mile away from her house, almost within comfortable walking distance.

So half an hour later she drove up to his place, which was pretty similar to hers, only that it was much bigger and nicer. The sophistication level of her suburb was comparable flying coach; his was business class.

He had told her to knock at the garden door and so she did. It was made out of wood and part of the huge fence that separated the backyard from the front of the house. He opened only seconds later.

Somehow on the way over the oddness of the whole plan, going fishing with a male friend on a Thursday night, had registered, and therefore she only stepped through the door very hesitantly.

He seemed determined to ignore the fact that she was not entirely convinced of his plan and led her down the garden path towards a landing stage where a little boat was floating on the water. They got in and he drove them out on the bay.

The engine eventually died down and the only sound that she could hear was the soft gurgling of the water. The boat rocked a little when he moved closer. Automatically her fingers held on a tighter to the wooden board that served as her seat. She didn't want to fall out of the boat. He sat down opposite of her, his eyes glinting in the twilight. It wasn't completely dark, above them the stars and the moon had already come out and were providing a little light.

The silence that surrounded them now stood in such a stark contrast to her hectic work day that she immediately felt it take an effect on her and couldn't help but feel somewhat calmer and more peaceable already.

He smiled. This time without any added irony or sarcasm and that was probably why that smile made only a very brief appearance, leaving her disappointed it was gone so soon.

The fishing rod was pressed into her hands and she just threw him a puzzled look. She had no idea what to do with it. He sighed and sat down next to her. For a second she was unsure what was going to happen next, he looked at her questioning, as if he was asking for permission for something. Eventually she nodded, unsure what she was agreeing to really. He grabbed her hands and positioned them on two different points of the rod.

"Okay and now?" she said in a lowered voice, unsure why she was actually half-whispering. It was probably the setting that created that particular mood.

"You throw the line."

"But don't you have to prepare anything? The bait and stuff..."

He smirked. "Already did. Come on now. Throw the line or are those arms made out of jelly after all, hotel girl?"

She did as she was told. The swimmer including bait landed in the water a couple of feet from them with a loudly audible blob.

"That's as far as you can throw it? Weakling," he mocked her from the side, but the humour in his voice told her not to take offence at his words.

Silence settled over them once again. They sat side by side without talking and surprisingly that was rather nice. He was good at the silences. Actually she thought that they were what ultimately endeared his character to her. That was not meant as a bad pun. It was then that she was able to read him better than at any other time. And after having known him for a while, she didn't have that much trouble with that anymore.

She turned her head to look at him and for once she really allowed herself to study his face without any guise. He calmly held her gaze in the semidarkness. There was none of that usual defiance in his expression, no mocking sneer, no scowl, just him reciprocating her gaze and for some reason that had a deeper impact on her than anything else.

This was his thinking place, the place were his defences came down, she realized and the fact that he had chosen to bring her here meant something. It gave a new dimension to their relationship. Doubtlessly it provided it with more depth because him bringing her here meant he was letting her close and not keeping her at arm length anymore, like he had done in the beginning when he had only displayed that rather abrasive side of his character all too often.

Thinking about him now, she saw his character as less one-dimensional than she had initial thought. He was like a literary figure invented by Byron, created to cause attraction, but also repulsion with the way he acted. Lately the attraction portion had been constantly increasing, which was bad all things considered, because she still didn't know him well enough to make sense of his behaviour that often had the tendency of appearing erratic. She had the suspicion, however, that it wasn't really that erratic. She just wasn't able to make sense of it sometimes. But she wanted to. And that was dangerous, because he fascinated her. And it was not some kind of superficial fascination that captured one's attention for a brief time span. No, it ran much deeper.

He was still looking at her. In the beginning of their acquaintance his gaze had intimidated her. She had thought it to be hard and unrelenting, but it really wasn't. Now she had no problem holding it for a longer period of time, except for the fact that it sometimes made her face feel warm and her heart beat faster. She knew what that meant. Of course, she did. She was old enough to understand those subtle warning signs. And all things considered she should have probably swum back to shore immediately, because thinking of starting something with a man who was temperamental, complicated and intense would not bode well for her. That much was obvious. She averted her gaze, trying to quench the emotional upheaval inside her.

The swimmer floated above the water calmly, almost mockingly. This wasn't about fishing. It was about something else, she realized. He had wanted to help her calm down and stop spinning around her own axis like a dog chasing its tail. To a certain extent he had achieved that. She was no longer thinking about work or Tony. She was only thinking about him and her now.

"I already feel better. Thank you," she said eventually. Her voice sounded noisy, disrupting the peace and quiet created by the steady sound of the waves.

He nodded, staying silent. If her soft voice were a disruption, his loud and raucous one would be like a thunderstorm.

Now that the last reminders of sunlight were gone, it was cold and she shivered. She rubbed her arms as she looked up at the night sky. She flinched when his hand touched her arm for a moment. She hadn't expected that. Let alone did she know how to deal with it because it conjured conflicting emotions inside her. One part of her wanted for him to keep on touching her, the other wanted to scoot away from him, so he would no longer be able to confound her with his physical proximity.

"We should get back," he said softly. "You're cold."

"I…" she wanted to protest, but the words died on her lips.

"Reel the bait in," he told her simply and then got back to his place at the rear of the boat. Despite the darkness he steered them safely towards his landing, tied the boat to it and got out. In order to follow him she would have to take a small leap of roughly two feet. It was no big deal, she tried to convince herself. Also his hands were outstretched to offer her his help if she needed it, still she hesitated. She got up on shaky legs and nervously looked at the distance between the boat and his outstretched hand. He wiggled his fingers invitingly.

"Come on, Nat!" he said and so she jumped, trusting in his ability to catch her. He did, but she had misjudged the distance and put a little too much force behind the jump, so she collided with his chest, which made him stagger back against one of the wooden pillars of the landing stage. But he would never let any harm come to her. Deep down somehow she knew that. His strong arms were holding her safely against him, they felt hot against her cool skin and she became very much aware of their closeness as she was pressed against his chest, which was unusual hard thanks to his muscles. She made the mistake of looking up into his face right then. She shouldn't have because it created something between them. Something that made her head all fuzzy, her knees weak and her heart thud loudly inside her chest.

"You can let go of me now," she almost whispered.

She saw him lick his lips. For once he seemed at a loss for words. Him and his smart mouth. Mouth. She shouldn't have thought the word because now she was staring right at the aforementioned part of his body and therefore could directly witness the movement of his lips when he spoke.

"Do I have to?"

His question registered only slowly, as did the fact that his thumb was rubbing up and down over the back of her upper arm, while the rest of fingers were softly squeezing her flesh. His other arm was slung around her midriff still holding her securely against him. It felt good, but also made her feel claustrophobic in a way.

"Breathe, Nat. Breathe," he told her gently, probably sensing her distress. "Just say the word and I'll let go of you."

She shook her head, which made him frown. Almost reflexively she touched his forehead then, as if she wanted to smooth out the wrinkles that had formed there just now. Her fingertips explored further and ghosted over the side of his face. His eyes widened in surprise, so for a couple of seconds her fingers rested in one place, before they started moving again. Finally the back of her hand traced over his cheek, there where his beard began. It was unexpectedly soft to the touch. _What am I doing here? _she asked herself. Yet the most important question she should have asked herself was: _W__hy __don't I stop__?_ This was going too far. She felt something. Some sort of lure, like a pull under her ribcage, soft yet powerful. It washed over her like dread, but it wasn't. It was more pleasant.

He probably felt it too. He closed his eyes. Such a simple gesture, but still it implied a certain amount of trust on his side. She let her forehead sink to his chest, inhaling the fragrance clinging to his shirt. It made her head go foggy and warmed her insides like sitting in front of a warm fireplace at Christmas. Part of her wanted to give into the attraction she felt for him. Another part was desperate and just wanted to run away. It screamed at her that she wasn't ready for more; that she would be hurt again and that she was stupid for even considering the remote possibility of having something more than a friendship with this man, who was wrong for her on some many levels.

She only became aware she was shivering when his voice softly pointed it out to her. "You're shaking like a leaf," he said with more gentleness than she thought him capable of and then he let go of her.

For a moment they just stood opposite of each other without talking. What were they supposed to say at this point anyway? Contrary to before, now there was something standing between them. There was the proverbial elephant in the room now because of their mutual attraction and that could not be addressed right now, or could it?

She stared down at the tips of her trainers, then back at his face. "I'm sorry, Stu. But I think I have to go," she more mumbled than spoke.

He nodded. His fists were clenched at his sides. He seemed upset. "Do whatever pleases you. I'm not standing in your way..." He motioned at the pier to his left that was lit by electric lanterns leading all the way up to his garden. The path was clear. She just needed to take it now.

With certain reluctance she started walking. It was hard to keep on going without looking back at him. He was certainly very disappointed in her. And if that was the case, she didn't want to see that particular look on his face. No doubt he would be scowling. It was such a typical facial expression for him. She really couldn't blame him for being disappointed. To be honest, she too was a little disappointed in herself, she realized as she stepped through the door leading from his backyard to his front yard. Instead of walking over to her car right away, she stayed where she was.

Inside her head there was chaos. But however chaotic her thoughts were, it didn't take much of an effort to figure out that running away from this situation was senseless. Of course she could put a physical distance between herself and him, but in the end she would have to deal with the fact that back there on the pier they had almost kissed.

The question was what did she really want? She was unable to say what she wanted at this point. But she could, however say with utmost clarity what she didn't want. And that was a good starting point as any. Perhaps this situation called for a more reasonable approach.

Looking at it from a logical point of view, her options were the following: she could walk up to his doorbell, ring it and try to face up to the music or she could run away and avoid him until he lost interest in her. Option number two didn't appeal to her at all. In addition to that it was childish. She knew that she wouldn't be able to go through with it anyway. He already meant too much to her for her to be able to forcefully cut him out of her life. Just thinking back to this afternoon, she knew that for certain. She hadn't even been able to walk away from him and leave him standing there. There was something that always brought her back to him. Just like right now. She couldn't leave.

Like in a trance she walked up to his doorstep. Her index finger hovered over the doorbell for a while and after what seemed like an eternity she finally rang, praying that he had gone inside and would hear her.

The door was ripped open seconds later. Its motion created a little draft that played with her hair for a moment. "What do you want?" he thundered. He looked sad, but also furious. That was at least before he schooled his face into a neutral mask.

"May I come in?" she asked in a small voice. He seemed larger than life to her right now and a little intimidating.

He made a swift and abrupt motion with his hand, pointing at the corridor behind him wordlessly.

"I'm sorry I left so quickly," she tried to explain her actions, "But I got scared."

"Tell me something I don't know already," he growled moodily and closed the door behind her, more like slammed it shut. She cringed.

"Well, I didn't do it without reason..."

"Do tell. I'm practically dying to be let down gently," he sneered.

"Let down gently?" she was genuinely puzzled by his words, and then she finally understood. He thought she wasn't interested in him. Well, he was very wrong there.

"I wasn't going to let you down gently," she said softly and that made him listen up.

"So what then?" he inquired briskly.

"Well, erm..." she looked at him, but eventually discovered that it was too difficult to maintain eye contact with him. He was too furious. Furious at her. Her eyes wandered to the floor. "In case you haven't noticed we've almost kissed..."

"Yeah, that was kind of memorable, also you running away right after was very memorable too..."

"Stuart, I'm scared, okay? It's not that I don't want to kiss you..."

That particular sentence made him listen up immediately. "So you want to kiss me?" And however much he tried to suppress it, there suddenly was a hopeful glimmer in his eyes that betrayed his true feelings.

"I do," she confirmed, unsure whether she should smile now or cry. She was wavering between those two emotions somehow. "But this is difficult. My situation isn't exactly easy. And kissing someone won't make it any easier... Probably only more complicated."

"I'm not someone," he told her.

"No, you're not just someone," she sighed. "That's exactly the point. You're Stuart. You're the first guy I've allowed myself to grow close to after my divorce and you're my friend."

"Is that all you see me as? A friend?"

She looked down at her hands. They were trembling, so she hid them behind her back. "No," she breathed, lowering her gaze. "No, and that's the problem... I don't know how to deal with that."

"And so you ran..." by the way he said those words it was clear he didn't approve.

"Of course I ran," she looked at him with a frown now. "And you really shouldn't be angry about that. Aren't you aware what you're getting yourself into? I'm a mess. And I don't say that to be cute. I mean it. I'm what's left after the fallout. Not some kind of grand prize or a sleeping princess you can kiss awake from a nightmare... I ran because I wanted to postpone the inevitable."

"What the hell do you mean by the inevitable?"

"Us altering the status quo of our relationship?" she supplied.

"So if you don't want that to happen right now because you're scared, you being here strikes me as sort of illogical. Perhaps you'd better leave again," he pointed out. "There's the door by the way."

She neither budged an inch nor did she seem particularly offended. Her biggest worry seemed to be to get her point across to him. "As I said, I don't think running or leaving will change anything," she informed him sadly.

"So what will?"

"Perhaps me talking some sense into you?"

"Pretty late in the game, don't you think? Seems kind of senseless right now."

"Stuart..." her facial expression looked pained, "How do you think this will work out? I'm like a china doll and you're the proverbial bull in the china shop."

"Even bulls can walk on tiptoes if they want to," he told her in all sincerity.

"Hard to believe."

"You'd have to see it to believe it," he shrugged. "But then again you would have to make up your mind about what it is you actually want. And that would be difficult, wouldn't it?"

"I know what I want."

He regarded her silently for a while, and then shook his head. "Do you? You keep making excuses, but you haven't actually come out and said it. I've only heard you bemoaning the fact that you were a wreck so far..."

His behaviour irritated and challenged her equally, so with a mixture of defiance and irritation she said the following words: "You want to hear what I want? I want you to kiss me." Just as soon as that particular sentence had left her mouth she started to feel self-conscious and nervous again. It had been a brief surge of confidence after all and had only lasted long enough for her to come out and actually say what it was that she wanted.

She had counted on him to swoop down on her now like Dracula, sans the cape of course, and engulf her in his dark and forbidden embrace to kiss her senseless. When none of that happened, she was surprised, perhaps even a little disappointed. She was even more surprised when the expression on his face softened.

"Nat..." he said and took a step towards her.

"What?"

"Why couldn't you have said that to begin with, instead of all that stupid gibberish?" he told her in a soft voice as he touched her cheek and tipped her head back so she looked into his face.

"I just wanted to protect you," her voice was sort of low now.

"Don't worry about me. I can take care of myself pretty well," he smiled. His face held no more trace of that severity from before. What she found there was instead a mixture of curiosity, amusement and perhaps even affection.

Her breath hitched when he leaned down. Again she had misjudged his intentions. His cheek brushed against hers. Her eyes fell closed, a breath left her lips. An excited tingling sensation spread from her stomach through all her extremities. "I know you're afraid, so you decide where this goes," he whispered to her.

He wanted her to make the first move? In a way it was understandable, because she had told him she was scared, but his behaviour was surprising, because it showed a sensitivity she had not expected of him. A warm feeling spread inside her chest upon that realisation, but as her hands reached up, they were still trembling ever so slightly before they came to rest on the nape of his neck. She felt his hair underneath her fingertips and was almost overwhelmed by the sudden feeling of intimacy that simple gesture created.

For one thing it set several things in motion. He stepped closer and wrapped his arms around her. She exhaled. Her breath quivered a little as it left her lips. The air suddenly felt heavy. Hesitantly she raised her eyes and looked into his. That up close she could finally try to define their colour. A strange mash up between grey, brown and green. Apparently whoever gave him those eyes had never been able to decide on a definite colour. What an odd thing for someone so determined and straight-forward.

Those thoughts faded out of existence like the last blip on a TV screen when he touched his forehead to hers. So close. Crooked nose, beard, soft and scratchy. In terms if sensory perception those were the very elementary things she perceived. She rubbed her cheek slowly against his, feeling the pleasant friction his facial hair created. Her thoughts started to become less focused on taking flight and more and more on the idea of kissing him. She only needed to turn her head the slightest bit and her fantasy would become real.

"Careful now, this is your last chance to run..." he told her.

Running was the farthest thing on her mind right now. There was warmth uncoiling in her stomach, her head was spinning and her breathing was sort of shallow. She could feel her heart beating inside her throat. Not to mention that her palms were sweaty and she felt foolish and childish and thoroughly out of her depth.

His lips kissed her chin for a moment and she wanted to scream 'Not there! Higher!' He pulled back. She looked at him expectantly. He was smiling, probably aware of what he was doing to her and taking pleasure in it.

He came closer again. This time touching his lips to hers like she had wanted to, but so softly and briefly it barely could be called a kiss. Then he pulled back and waited, leaving the next move up to her, which was frustrating, because it challenged her on so many levels.

She was afraid. So very afraid. And he wanted her to take the next step, although she had lost all her security when it came to anything regarding love and relationships.

They established eye contact again, because it was necessary at this point. He needed to understand how insecure she was about herself and that she felt very shy under his gaze. The fear of making herself vulnerable to him made her freeze up and she started to worry it had been a mistake opening up to him in the first place. Maybe she couldn't do this after all.

Irritated with herself, she bit her lip while he gently stroked her cheek with his hand. For once his face was unguarded. His gaze was affectionate and it warmed her right down to her very heart. She did want this. She wanted this very much and right now her desire to kiss him was bigger than her fear of heartbreak and failure.

She leaned in and closed her eyes. Her lips caressed his. It was a soft kiss, completely innocent and over far too quickly, because when the kiss ended, he also let go of her and took a step back. His behaviour confounded her.

"What are you doing?" she asked, sounding almost irritated.

"You're setting the pace of this, not I. If you liked what we just did, you will have to come and take what you want. If you want it after all..."

She frowned at him. Although his suggestion was very sensible, it didn't mean it made any sense to her in that particular moment. He was depriving her of the opportunity to explore this wonderful new sensation of kissing him. She wouldn't have any of this, so she approached him again.

Apparently he had counted on that to happen. The left corner of his mouth curled up into a smile. She placed her hand on the side of his face. She looked determined and it made him smile a little more when he leaned down to give her what she wanted.

"Has anyone ever pointed out to you that you're too tall?" she asked before their lips met again. Hers were pliant and soft, but also more demanding this time around.

"Why? Does it make things more difficult for you?" he told her as their lips separated briefly.

"I will never be able to really surprise you with a kiss when you always have to lean down first..." she pointed out to him with a pout.

"You could if we were lying down," he smirked.

She frowned, but only very briefly. There was something like amusement in her gaze, which eventually lifted the reluctant corners of her mouth up to form a smile. "That's a scenario that's only remotely possible at this point."

He barely had time to register the mischievous expression in her eyes before she kissed him again. There was a new intensity to it. Perhaps their mutual teasing had made her more relaxed. At any rate she grew bolder now.

She opened her mouth a little and their breaths mingled. His hand squeezed her lower back. A soft 'ah' sound left her lips. He smirked in satisfaction and felt her tighten her hold on him. When she slowly pulled back, her teeth even nipped a little at his bottom lip.

"Naughty," the appreciative grin on his face made his following words superfluous. "I like that," he whispered to her and was immediately silenced again by her mouth on his. The tips of their tongues touched. Again she made the smallest, most endearing sound, like a hum. He was fascinated and even though he had a lot of self-control, at this point he was no longer able to let her take the lead. He deepened the kiss and felt her hands, which had rested on his back before, flexing as she was trying to hold on to him tighter. Now she moaned in earnest against his lips and the sound was so delicious he wanted to hear it more often.

He felt himself slipping, growing more demanding and slightly rougher in the way he was kissing her. She matched his intensity, which wouldn't have been problematic at all if he hadn't known for a fact that she was still troubled by the aftermath of her failed marriage. They needed to stop before things got worse, as in him thinking about peeling her out of her clothes and taking her right there against his front door. And there that went. That particular visual imagine in his head, everything grew harder. And yes, pun intended. She was testing his resolve; she was making him consider doing things she wasn't ready for, not by a long stretch.

He needed to do something, before this got further out of control. His hands had already started fondling her breasts through the fabric of her top. But he was starved, desperate for her. She had had him dangling from her hook far too long. It was really a little pathetic. He pried his lips away from her eventually and focused on his breathing. In and out. In and out. Maybe this longing would pass eventually. It didn't. He would just have to suck it up then. He looked at her and inevitably made things worse for himself. Her lips were slightly red from being kissed so thoroughly. She was breathing fast too. Despite everything he smiled when he saw that her chin was a little red.

He stroked his thumb over it once. "You've got beard burn," he announced teasingly, softening the usual sting of the irony behind his words by kissing her chin right after.

"Really?" she asked. And he noticed with a certain male pride how she looked kind of dazed and her pupils were dilated.

"Yes. Unfortunately for you," he smirked, "this can't come off," he pointed at his beard, "boss man would probably croak because it's part of the whole Bad News Barrett gig... Also it makes me look quite distinguished, don't you think?"

"You're such a charming, very humble man," she said, wrinkling her nose. She was still smiling. He could feel her thumb trace along his vertebrae through his shirt. It felt nice.

"Yeah, I'm the charming bloke who's gonna give your pretty little face a beard burn on a regular basis now..." It would probably kill him to only just kiss her when he wanted more, but he was willing to live with that, because he had a feeling that all things considered, it would proof to be worth it. Good things come to those who wait and all that nonsense.


	8. Relationship Status? Tick a Box

"About that..." she said and inevitably forced him come down to the cold and hard reality of things. He had gotten ahead of himself. Like way ahead.

He let go of her. "What is it now? Do you want to run again?" His eyes were narrowed, which wasn't a good sign, so she hurried to explain herself.

"No, hold on. That's not what I said."

"What did you want to say then?"

"I'd like to know whether this... this thing between us means anything to you," she said sort of clumsily. The way she looked at him, with that shy smile like a teenager, made him have mercy on her and not mock her right away for her appalling lack of eloquence.

"It does," he said after a while.

She breathed out a sigh of relief. "Okay... Good, because it matters to me too. You matter to me, too."

He nodded. "So do we want to define that elusive something between us you mentioned?"

She looked down and licked her lips. "I don't want to overstep my boundaries... It feels like I can only say something wrong..."

"The truth is hardly ever a wrong choice," he told her matter-of-factly.

"You think so?"

He nodded.

"I'm not the type of girl for a one-night stand..."

"Natalie, honestly," he laid his hands on her shoulders and threw her a stern look, "do you think I would go through the trouble of consoling you in a fit of hysteria, lug around your bleeding furniture or take you out in my boat if I was only interested in a quick shag?" Honestly, that wasn't what he was after. He was more looking for something permanent and emotionally gratifying that entailed a ceaseless supply of long and quite thorough shags, hopefully.

"I don't know… I guess not..." she replied, smiling at him shyly there. "So what is this then?"

"Let's say this is serious try at something more," he suggested.

"I wasn't aware you felt like that."

"Well, now you are and I would like to hear your standpoint on that matter."

"Well... Erm... I was hoping you'd say something like that," she replied, feeling her cheeks flush.

"Now we only need to define what that something more entails. Maybe you could jump over your shadow now and actually tell me what you expect from me for once." She had to give him credit for keeping the irony in his voice down to a minimum. The way she was behaving was indeed ridiculous. All that stuttering and blushing. She was a grown woman of thirty, not some teenage girl.

"It entails..." her voice died down momentarily and she cleared her throat to get it back, "Well, it entails... You and me not going out with other people?" What was supposed to be a statement actually sounded like a question.

"Not that that is already implied when one is serious about things," he concluded.

She gave his chest a shove, because his tone had been entirely too sarcastic for her taste. To her dissatisfaction she had to realize that shoving him actually accomplished nothing besides amusing him. He actually chuckled because of it.

"Seriously now..." she said, glaring at him darkly.

"I was being serious, darling," he told her. His voice was filled with that dark timber she liked so much and that made her a little more peaceable, despite the fact that he was still taking refuge in not taking her seriously. "It's just with the way things are right now, I'm slightly reminded of middle school and how me and my mates used to slip notes to the girls we fancied during class. You know the ones that said: Do you want to be my girlfriend? Yes? No? Maybe? Tick a box. Not that we did have any success with that method, mind you. I reckon it's still doomed to fail."

"I'm sorry if this sounds juvenile and ridiculous to you. I'm just saying that I don't want to share you with anyone else. I don't think that's so bad," she admitted, blushing a deep shade of crimson as she uttered those words. To her credit it had to be said that she didn't blush easily. Exposing herself like that made her feel insecure and his tendency of mocking everyone and everything didn't particularly help with that.

As he looked down into her beautiful flushed face he realized he was being a complete and utter ass. There she was, freshly divorced and offering him of all people her heart on a plate and he was acting like that. He shook his head. "No, it is I who should be sorry." His words were unexpected, at least to her and made her look at him with big round eyes. "I'm being my usual charming and rather stupid self about this, when I should be thankful the most beautiful, fascinating woman I know is giving me the time of day."

She wasn't used to compliments from him, so she just stood there gaping.

"Oh, don't give me that look!" he said.

"What look?"

"Like you're about to ask for my ID. It's not like I am that much of a pathetic sod that I don't know when something extremely good is happening to me. And this is so much better than I deserve..."

"Than you deserve?" she frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Sweetheart, in case you haven't noticed am not actually a very gentle man..."

"It sort of occurred to me right after we first met..."

"So, are you still sure about this idea of not wanting to see other people?"

"Yes," she nodded, "because if we want to give this an earnest try, I need to be able to trust you. I don't know what will happen and how this will end up, but for once I want to be honest about things right from the start."

"Well, okay on that note... You're aware that I travel a lot?"

She nodded slowly and with a rather serious expression on her face.

"Is that going to be a problem?" he asked briskly.

"I don't know. Perhaps not if you try to give me the impression of spending as much time as you can with me..."

"I spent each and every single minute of my free time in the past two months with you," he replied. "What do you think that means?"

"It means that you keep avoiding the question, when all I want is an honest straightforward answer from you," she said.

He sighed and ran his hands over his face tiredly. "All right." He shot her a long look. He could tell she was fighting to keep her composure because his behaviour must have been torturous to her. His inability to open up about his own feelings stood in his way right now. If he wasn't able to verbalize what he felt, he wouldn't have a chance with her. She needed to be reaffirmed, she needed to be told she was beautiful and special and cherished. This moment right here would decide whether they had any potential apart from sharing a few rather amazing snogs in the entrance hall of his house.

Was he the right guy for her then? Could he do this? He had to try... In his life he hadn't met too many Natalies and he doubted he ever would again. Women like her came along only once every leap year.

"All right. So the bottom line is, Nat," he looked at her for just a second before he continued and took the big plunge, "however pathetic that must sound... ever since I met you I've haven't even noticed the existence of other women, so I doubt that the idea of dating any of them casually on the side, while there is you, should ever cross my mind..." He took a deep breath. Now that he had started talking it wasn't that hard anymore. The trick was just not to look her in the eyes directly and fake as much confidence as possible. "As for my statement about traveling... Not having relationships, it is a self-preservation thing. The likelihood of any relationship working out when you're on the road 320 out of 365 days of the year is minimal. It is possible if one is determined enough, and I'm quite determined and pig-headed, but you need to be aware that the conditions are not exactly ideal. When it comes to you however," only now he looked at her for the first time ever since he started talking and discovered that she was practically hanging from every word he said, so he chose to continue, "When it comes to you," he reiterated, "I'm willing to do everything in my power to make it work. Time with you always seems to be far too short and I keep wishing we had longer than just a few hours..."

He would have said more, would have tried to explain better, but he never got around to that. But in retrospect maybe he should have been thankful that she deprived him of the opportunity of making more of a fool of himself than he already had.

"Same here," she admitted softly.

He smiled at her words and also in relief about the fact that she hadn't been appalled or repulsed by what he had said.

"So what now? We can't stay in the entrance hall forever. Do you want to come in? Or do you want to leave?" he eventually said, hiding his emotions behind those rather practical questions.

"I thought that maybe you'd give me a tour of the house."

He nodded. "Of course. Where do we start? The stables? Or would you like to see the west wing or east wing first?"

His sarcasm didn't register with her at first, he could tell judging by the genuinely surprised expression on her face that was eventually followed by a look of realisation. He was grinning as he switched on the light in the hall and led her towards the living room and the open kitchen area that was adjoining to it. What caught her attention immediately was the window front that made up one wall of the living room and kitchen area. Saying it was a spectacular view would have been an understatement. The windows were looking out on a pool, behind it the pier and the water. Now by night you could see the lights of other houses and boats dancing on the water.

He was looming behind her. She was momentarily distracted by the sight of the waterfront, so she wasn't prepared for him to place his hands on her shoulders. She tensed momentarily, but that passed when he gently pulled her back against his chest and wrapped his arms around her. "Haven't you already seen enough of that for one night?" he whispered into her ear and made her shiver pleasantly.

She could see their reflection in the windowpane. He was embracing her from behind, both arms wrapped around her shoulders. His nose was buried in her hair. The scene looked like something from the cover of one of those clichéd romance novels. The only things missing were ruffled shirts and flowing gowns and a soft breeze that blew back their hair. But now that she was part of a scenario like that it didn't seem so contrite and tacky anymore. Actually she was about to melt.

"Seen enough? Of what? You, the bay or the house?" she said softly, noticing how her voice had acquired a breathy quality instead of the intended teasing undertone she had wanted to infuse it with.

"House," the word was a hot exhale that ghosted over the sensitive skin of her neck. She twisted around in his arms and came to face him.

"We can't keep kissing all night. I need to get to know you better first," she told him softly, although she wanted to do just that now - kiss him again.

"We still have plenty of time for that. And about the snogging deal... Who says we can't?" he asked teasingly. "I certainly didn't." His gaze was focused on her lips and made his intentions pretty clear. She could feel his eyes very distinctly watching them move as she spoke.

"I just..." she started and that was about as far as she got before she was silenced by his mouth on hers.

Kissing him was unexplored territory and it was different than she had expected. Looking at him you'd think he was too rough about it, maybe inconsiderate. That wasn't entirely true. He wasn't too domineering either. Their first few kisses had ranged from innocent to slightly rough. This one was slow. After all he had just proclaimed they had all night. It was the kind of kiss you'd get and always want more of after. In fact, it made her feel so dizzy and unsure on her feet, she tried to latch onto him by gathering fistfuls of the material of his shirt. After they had broken apart, she somewhat embarrassedly tried to smooth out the creases in the fabric from where she had tried to hold onto it to steady herself. It made him laugh and cover her hands with his. They stilled on his chest, one of them resting right over his heart. It was racing, and his ribcage was rising and falling quickly. It told her more than words and betrayed that his calm exterior was only a facade.

She stared up into his eyes, again trying uselessly to pinpoint their colour. She had a feeling she'd be doing that a lot from now on. Trying to guess his mood and the colour of his eyes, while she was suppressing the constant urge to kiss him. It was ridiculous how attracted she felt to him. Maybe she had stored up all of those hormones and attraction in the ten years of her marriage when she had had less and less use of them. That thought was enough to bring her back down to reality and make feel the need for a little space.

She gently pulled her hands from his grasp and stepped out of his arms. He watched her with a frown. She turned around, ignoring that particular facial expression. The fact that he was frowning no longer alarmed her like before. He wasn't really irritated or angry, just surprised. For him a frown was just his default facial expression.

She gave his living room a once over. It was very spartanly furnished. Functionality was key here. There were bookshelves that were filled to the brim, but there was no decoration. There also was the almost clichéd leather couch that was probably mandatory for every bachelor pad.

She walked over to one of the bookshelves and looked at the spines of those books, some paperbacks that were well-used, others hardcovers. Biographies, books about sports naturally, novels, WWE almanacs... She pulled out the WWE encyclopaedia and threw him a teasing glance as she leafed through the book to get to his entry.

"I see, Wade Barrett... hmmm-mmmh. Billing at 6ft 7 and 246 lbs. Nice pictures by the way. Clean shaven and oh! Will you look at those tattoos..." she gave him a meaningful glance. "You know the ones you've been all kinds of secretive about."

"Yeah, pity it's from a couple of years back, so it's only got the old ones."

"The old ones?" her eyes grew huge at that.

"Ever heard of CM Punk?"

She shook her head.

"Christ! You're completely clueless about wrestling, aren't you? The bloke has his whole torso covered in tatts."

"Why are you telling me that? Do you too?"

He only smirked complacently in response.

"Really? You don't seem the type..." she frowned and soon answered her own question with a loud 'no', which made him grin even more. Why did he keep grinning like that? Was it really that he took so much pleasure in teasing her? So he was probably only having her on with that remark. "No, no, no... No!" the tone of those 'nos' was slightly changing and sort of documenting her passage from being somewhat unsure to being convinced he was teasing her.

"You could always check," he told her with a considerable degree of smugness in his voice. "Or, if you're not brave enough for that, you could come to one of our shows. I take my shirt off there quite frequently."

She thought for a moment. "Are you inviting me or trying to concoct an excuse for taking of your shirt in the very near future?"

"Depends," he shrugged his shoulders. "Would you be you interested in me taking my shirt of right now?"

She flushed, suddenly feeling hot and cold at once. "Do you really want me to answer that?"

He grinned. "Yes, with one hand over your heart and the other one where I can see it. So are you interested?"

"Hypothetically speaking? Or for real right now?"

He sighed. "We're not talking about anything perverse. I was just going to take of my shirt. Are you afraid I'm going to ravish you right away, woman? Bloody hell, don't you think I have any self-control? I have you know that I'm a bit more subtle than that."

"All right. Then yes. I'd be interested."

"Wow, that wasn't hard at all. And suddenly I'm not up for that anymore. Guess you will have to go to the show after all. Question is: Would you actually come?"

"For me to be able to decide that would require a proper invitation first..."

"That's how you're going to play it then?" he smirked appreciatively. "Brilliant. I guess I'll have to invite you simply for being clever. So, yes you're invited. What now?"

"I'll come," she smiled. "When?"

"Incidentally I'll be on NXT in two weeks. That's pretty close. Right over in Orlando."

"OK."

"About those two weeks, Nat..." She didn't like how his voice sounded regretful there.

"What about them?"

"I'll not be able to make it home till then." he told her, his eyes on her face waiting for her reaction.

"Oh," she said and snapped the book in her hands shut, actually looking disappointed. "That's 14 whole days," she pointed out.

"That's sort of implied when one says two weeks. Yeah."

She put the book back in the shelf and walked over to him. Somehow in the last minutes she had grown less timid and insecure. She reached out to him and touched him without being hesitant about it and he would have lied if he had said he didn't like that. That was the way things were supposed to be. Her fingers traced along his jaw and then disappeared in the hair on the side of his head and eventually repeated the motion. She almost had to stand on tiptoes to reach up to him and perhaps that was why there was that uncomfortable expression on her face now. Another explanation could have been her displeasure with finding out he'd be gone for so long. "14 days is a very long time," she pointed out softly. "You've only just come back."

"That's how this works," he told her matter-of-factly, his voice less gruff than usually thanks to her way of tenderly caressing his head and face. In order to allow her better access, he sat down on the couch behind him and pulled her closer to him, so she stood between his legs and could continue stroking his hair at leisure. It felt kind of nice and when nice things happened to him, he tried to make the most of them, because in his experience they didn't come around too often or last too long.

"Always?" Her fingers in his hair stilled.

He hesitated for a second, which was out of character for him. In case of doubt he always went with the truth even if it was uncomfortable. So what did his hesitance mean? Probably that he cared for her a great deal and didn't want to hurt her feelings. Still her not knowing wouldn't get them any further, so he answered her question truthfully, even though he knew she wouldn't like hearing what he had to say. "No, sometimes I'm gone even longer. Like when we go on our European tour twice a year."

"OK," she sighed, which implicated what exactly? That she would be able to live with that? Or that she wished she hadn't kissed him earlier? Only time would tell. He shoved those questions back into his subconscious and focused on the present.

"So we have until tomorrow?" she surmised correctly, albeit a little imprecisely.

"It's past midnight, so technically it already is tomorrow," he pointed out, which made her emit a little irritated growl and clasp his face between her hands.

"I was going to say that I'd be willing stay a while longer, but you're so... Hmmm," she searched for an inoffensive word in her head, "you're so typically you, you're making it hard for me," she said, her voice wavering between amusement and irritation, which was prefect because that was precisely the reaction he had been aiming at.

Instead of an answer he smirked, his arms encircling her waist. He knew he was rubbish at talking about his feeling, he was better at doing things, so he pulled her flush against him. "Try leaving now," he challenged.

She playfully tried to break free of his embrace. He slightly leaned back as an act of retribution which made her struggle to keep her balance.

"Stop it. You're about to tip me over," she admonished him.

"Hmm," there was an evil smirk on his face. "Really? The possibility of that happening never even occurred to me..." She swatted his chest.

"You're evil."

He only smirked and leaned further back. Consequently she fell forward and landed on his chest with a soft 'Ufff' sound. He didn't give her any time to adjust to the situation or protest. He slung his arm around her and scooted backwards, taking her with him, so she ended up sprawled out on top of him while his head came to rest comfortably on the armrest of the couch. "Aaah," he grinned. "I say, that's more like it. Rather comfy, wouldn't you agree?"

Perhaps he had gone too far there. For a second or two there her eyes were wide in surprise and he carefully removed his arms from around her. What he wanted out of this situation was perfectly innocent, but she didn't know him well enough to understand that right away. He was no gentle man, but he possessed certain convictions and a moral code. Also, like he had stated earlier, she was the one to set the pace in this. He saw his part in the whole scenario as the one who would be carefully testing the boundaries. A little gentle nudging and prodding would be necessary to help them move forward, but under no circumstances did he want to overwhelm her. He knew enough about her situation to be aware that this was absolutely key right now.

Mercifully, the look of slightly panicked surprise disappeared from her face and was gradually replaced by one of curiosity. She made no move to get up, which was a good thing in his book. For a while there her posture remained stiff. She seemed to take stock of the situation. They were both fully clothed and she was stretched out on top of him on the couch, which meant she was in control, at least to a certain extent. He raised his hands, brought them in her field of vision and eventually positioned them on the sofa to show her that he wouldn't be touching her unless she wanted it. It made her smile affectionately, which was a wonderful thing to see that up close. He was enthralled by the way her lips curved up and her brown eyes looked at him without any reproach or judgment. He was rarely at the receiving end of such a look, so he tried to commit it to memory to be able to call upon it in bad times. Bad times like spending two weeks without her.

She adjusted their position, apparently thinking it to be too risky and too early to be completely sprawled out on top of him, because she shifted her lower body to the side, so it would rest next to his one the couch, while her upper body remained on his chest.

Her fingers were spread out over the fabric of his shirt, radiating warmth through it. Her ear was pressed to a point on his chest right over his heart. He thought it safe to encircle her in his arms again now and she reacted favourable to that by all accounts because she let out a content sigh.

"Does that feel about right for you?" he inquired softly.

"Right? Yes... But slightly weird."

"How so?" he asked in surprise.

She propped up her head on her folded arms to look at him properly, reminding him slightly of a cat, thanks to the feline nature of the gesture. "The muscles. I'm not used to them. Everything feels different. Also... this is still so new. It has barely had time to register in my brain."

He ran his hand over her back. He thought the gesture to be inconsequential because it was only meant to reassure her, but instead she closed her eyes and almost purred, if that was possible for a human being.

"Do you like that?" he asked needlessly. His other arm was resting around her midriff unthreateningly in the meantime.

"Yes," she exhaled against his chest, so he repeated the motion again and again and she would relax more and more against him.

"Soooo comfortable..." she said drowsily and inhaled his scent with her nose pressed against his shirt.

He supposed the fact that she was comfortable could be chalked down as a win on his side. It meant she trusted him and felt secure in his presence. His arms briefly squeezed her and she made a soft humming noise to signal her contentment. He smiled, gladly resigning himself to the inevitable fate of the circulation in his arm being cut off by the weight of her head.

"Just don't fall asleep," he admonished her and pressed a kiss to the crown of her head. "I'll be gone in a couple of hours."

"So talk to me then..."

"What do you want to talk about?"

"I don't know. Anything?"

He sighed. "Anything is a very vast field, luv."

She looked up in his face. He had expected her to be annoyed with him but she wasn't. Come to think of it, she rarely let him feel like she was annoyed with him; only when he kept pushing his luck.

She adjusted her position by scooting further up and resting her chin on one of her hands. Her eyes were on his face. She looked pensive, while her fingers gently and casually stroked his cheek. He held her gaze, regarding her face.

"Hey," she sighed.

"Hey," he said softly. Conversation died down after that. It wasn't the right moment for it.

It was time to take a closer look. He took in the fine lines around the corners of her eyes and her mouth, which probably came from having to smile all the time. He touched his index finger to one right left of her mouth. It deepened as she smiled. This time the smile reached her eyes, which held a melancholic expression quite often, too often, at least for his taste. Freckles were dusting the bridge of her nose, but they were barely there and today it was the first time he noticed them. There was the faintest trace of a little scar on her forehead, up close to her hairline. It only became visible when you squinted your eyes.

His eyes lowered to hers again. She exhaled. He could feel her heart beating faster against his chest. She confounded him. When had looking at someone ever been this personal? He found himself wanting to make her smile; he wanted to learn about that scar; he wanted to make that melancholia in her gaze disappear.

He wanted to tell her something, which he could not tell her with words. He liked her quite a bit and that was understating it. In fact she fascinated him and got under his skin somehow. Ever since they had first met he was drawn to her like a magnet or the moth to the flame or whatever silly metaphor one wanted to apply here. He was aware that their timing wasn't good and she wasn't in a good place emotionally. But then again he knew a little bit about melancholia, disillusionment and sadness. Of course she didn't deserve to feel like that. Nobody did. He wanted to make it go away. If he could. His arms slung around her and pulled her further against him.

He couldn't and wouldn't tell her all of those things, that was just not him, but he could show her his affection. Despite his many limitations and shortcomings that was well within his possibilities.

They kissed again. This time without the added pretenses. The first kiss had been supposed to impress her; everything that followed had been his way of wanting to ensure she stayed around for more kisses. This was just him kissing her. The private side of him that was vulnerable and had scars on its soul and wanted to reach out to her.

His lips caressed hers softly. His tongue only dipped briefly in-between her lips. Just to taste her. With greedy and deep breaths he inhaled her scent and his fingers squeezed her back. "Hmmmmmm" was the sound she made in response to that. Her hands moved up from his chest to his face and started caressing it. They continued kissing like that for a while. It must have been minutes, but it felt like seconds to him.

Eventually she pulled back. Her hands were still on the sides of his face as she gently rested her forehead against his. "Was that you trying to get me absolutely hooked on you?" she whispered.

"Did I succeed?" he asked back, his voice equally low.

"Yes," she nodded, slowly pulling back so she could have this conversation with him while she looked into his face. One of her hands still rested on his cheek though. Her thumb gently tracing up and down over his facial hair.

"I know so little about you..."

"You haven't you looked me up on the Internet?"

She frowned, making the scar close to her hairline easier to spot. "Would you have liked me to do that?"

"No," he smirked. "So how much do you know already..."

"You're English..."

"Whatever made you think that, darling? Brilliant observational skills," he drawled and rolled his eyes, but in a joking and rather gentle way.

"I was getting the obvious things out of the way," she laughed. "As we previously established, your favourite football team is Preston FC. You like fishing, lager and music. You wrestle for a living. Your wrestling alter ego is called Bad News Barrett and constantly delivers bad news to people. Being a wrestler, naturally you're in much better physical shape than I am and I will never go jogging with you again. Too humiliating..." That comment made him grin and her as well. They had a strange reciprocity thing going there. He couldn't seem to manage to keep a straight face when she smiled. "You can get really prickly when someone says something stupid... My guess is because you have a short temper and don't like stupidity." He nodded. And she paused briefly. She had run out of ammunition, but then one last thing occurred to her. Her face lit up. "And you're an incredibly good kisser."

"Congratulations. The basics are there. Actually saying that I'm from England is like saying you're from the US. I'm from Lancashire..."

She frowned.

"It's up in the north of England," he clarified for her.

"All right."

"Have you always lived in New York?" he asked back, trying to learn something about her in return.

She shook her head. "I'm from Providence actually. I moved to New York in my twenties..."

"Where you met..."

"Tony," she completed the sentence.

"The prick," he said simultaneously and made her smile, but also swat his arm.

A brief pause. "So working at a hotel you've got to speak some foreign languages..."

She grinned. "I do. What about you?"

"I picked up a bit of German at school. Now that's almost gone..."

"_Gut__. __Lass hören_," she grinned, challenging him to display those fairly rusty language skills.

"I would have talked to Cesaro more often if I had known this would happen_... __Ich kann nur noch sehr wenigen... Erm... sprechen_."

She laughed. "Not that bad."

"All right. I think I deserve to know now. Other languages, apart from German?"

"Spanish, Italian and a bit of French. But my French is really bad. Like abysmal. It's enough for a check-in, but not enough to understand an angry complaint."

"Which you must get a lot, given your absolutely supreme skills behind the reception desk," he said in his most ironic tone of voice.

She actually pouted there. "It just happened once." She held up her index finger in front of his face. "Once, with you and it wasn't even my fault. Just let it drop already..."

"Sure. It happened only once, luv," he patted her head in a condescending way and she lightly swatted his hand away after a few seconds. There was a disgruntled expression on her face, but it was not genuine, because the corners of her mouth kept twitching deceptively.

"_Du gehst mi__r manchmal so auf den Kecks_!" she told him in German.

"Was that 'You're getting on my nerves' in German?"

Damn him!

"What if it was?"

"Then I'd need to memorize it for work," he grinned.

"For that Cesaro guy?" she asked, suppressing a laugh. "He's gonna love that."

"Sure knowing how to insult someone in his mother tongue is classy, also it shows you care."

He made her laugh, which of course he liked and had been aiming at. They continued talking after that. About nothing quintessential, just this and that. But it was enough to keep them entertained until the sun came up.

**Author's note: **** I thought it was a better idea to attach the author's note at the end, so not everyone has to read it. **

** xsmokeandmirrors: I loved the yes-ing (Is that even what it's called?). At any rate, keep going ;-) It makes me insanely happy.**

** Tammy: They are fun together, but a bit like cat and dog. There is going to be quite a lot of arguing going on, I can tell you.**

** LivHardy: I'm incredible at build-ups? (blushes) Thank you. Well, you're not half-bad at them yourself ;-). I've been waiting for Dean and Aria to finally get together for ages ;-) but it was so worth it. **

**All right, you guys. You know the drill keep them reviews coming. It's the fuel that keeps this writing engine going (cheesy imagery, I apologize). Next chapter: Stuart, Natalie and NXT, oh my!**


	9. Mating Habits

**Author's note:** ** A big thanks to my beta UntilNeverDawns for always being awesome and also for being extra-awesome and getting my Monty Python reference. (Can you find it, too?)**

**Thank you also to LivHardy, DevilRaw, my Guest reviewers and Tammy. Looks like there are also some people along for the ride who read my Sheamus stories (Glad you've found your way over and welcome!). He's going to appear in this one as well. Still got a soft spot for him.**

* * *

Over those two weeks he called her every day. His phone calls were short and only managed to convey in part that they were signs of his affection towards her. He wasn't a great talker, but sometimes he got it right like when he told her in his own disgruntled way that he had had a shitty day and wished she were there. Or when he told her that some minor occurrence had made him think of something she had once mentioned casually during a conversation.

Still, she felt nervous and insecure driving up to Orlando to see this week's edition of NXT that would be featuring him. She didn't know how he would react to seeing her or how she would react to seeing him. Perhaps what had happened between them had only been a one-time thing, some sort of fluke. Perhaps he hadn't been all that serious about wanting to give a relationship with her a try. She really had no idea what to expect.

On top of everything, she felt like she was entering a foreign and new world when she was suddenly surrounded by a crowd of people, mostly male adults in their mid-twenties, who wore wrestling T-shirts, while she was sporting a simple black band T-shirt, Depeche Mode, and some skinny jeans. While she was still standing around trying to take it all in, over there they were selling fan merchandise (Should she get a shirt there?), maybe she should get a Coke over there, the stream of people carried her inside the arena. The arena was filling. Compared to other arenas she had been to, this was a fairly intimate setting and she had ringside tickets, so she was pretty close to what happened in the ring. She fiddled with her backstage pass nervously.

The show started and she couldn't help but think about it as a mixture of boxing and sports car racing, what with all the beautiful woman strutting around in skimpy outfits on stage.

He had told her he wouldn't be dating anyone on the side, let alone look at anyone else. That was hard to believe when she saw women who looked like beauty pageant contestants in the bathing suit portion of the tournament parading around everywhere. She shook her head angrily, trying to rid herself of those self-destructive thoughts. Self-doubt had become her constant companion ever since Tony had cheated on her. It had left her prone to feeling inadequate at times, though deep down she knew about her strengths. She shook her head angrily. She didn't want to think about that now. The Titantron flashed to life with pictures of Stuart and there he was seconds later, swaggering out on stage.

He was wearing a T-Shirt that said Bad News Barrett and some black trunks. Ever since the show started she had already become accustomed to the fact that most wrestlers apparently had a textile allergy, so that didn't surprise her anymore, but that didn't keep her from looking. He was really a sight to behold. But she didn't get to gush about how good he looked, not even quietly to herself, because he was already reaching for the microphone he had conveniently stored in one of his kneepads, and raised it to his lips with a smirk. "Adrian, Adrian, Adrian... Sorry to interrupt you, mate, but I'm afraid I've got some bad news..." His tone of voice and the laughter in it didn't suggest he was particularly sorry about delivering aforementioned bad news and even the audience seemed delighted to hear it as they all cheered loudly.

"You see, you might think you're a big star over here at NXT, where you've got the reputation of being the man gravity forgot. What a nice little fairy tale! But let me quote Isaac Newton here: What goes up, must come down. And you inevitably will, when my fist connects with your face." With that he threw the microphone aside and that Adrian Neville guy and him engaged into an all out brawl. One might add that it happened rather spontaneously and therefore Stuart didn't get the chance to take off his shirt. Some of the match looked so disquietingly real, Natalie jumped up in her seat a couple of times. Of course, she was rooting for Stuart. It looked like an intense match. Neville was all about high flying moves and technique, she realized even though she didn't know much about wrestling, whereas Stuart was also a good technician, but more about brute force. Did that really surprise her? She would have to say 'no'.

She smiled when at the end of the match Stuart pinned his adversary to the mat with authority. He was sweaty from the effort, but smirking triumphantly as he arrogantly cheered about his own victory. It was then their eyes met for the first time and her breath hitched a little when he pointed at her.

He was gone too soon and the next match started. Barely two minutes into it, her muted cell phone vibrated in her pocket with a new text message. "Get your bloody bum backstage, hotel girl."

She arched her left eyebrow at the commanding tone of the message, but she was also smiling, she couldn't deny that. She got out of her seat and whispered apologies as she moved through the line of people towards the stairs that would bring her to the exit. Outside the door there was a man from security and she flashed him her badge as a means strike up a brief conversation. "Excuse me, could you please tell me how I can get backstage?"

He rattled through an explanation, something like "turn left, take the second on the right, then left again". She frowned. Navigating those corridors seemed complicated. Soon she was on her way, her fingers picking at the corner of the laminated card around her neck. The situation made her nervous, because it had so many unknowns. How was she supposed to find him backstage? How would he react to seeing her after those two weeks? Wouldn't she be in the way?

Another member of security guarded the door to the backstage area. She flashed him her badge again. He held the door open for her. "Ma'am." She barely had the time to say 'thank you' because a hand closed around her wrist and pulled her through the door.

She looked up into Stuart's familiar face, several emotions flickering over her face in a split second. Surprise, confusion, anxiety – eventually she smiled. "Erm... Hi." He was still wearing his Bad News Barrett shirt, which was clinging to his broad frame. It struck her again how tall he was, particularly now that she was wearing sneakers. His muscular legs and arms were glistening because they were covered in a sheen of sweat. Honestly, there was so much to look at about him she didn't know where to start looking.

"'lo," he greeted her with a half-smirk and without wasting any time, he started leading her away through the flurry of activity of the backstage area. The show was still running after all.

"Where are we going?"

"Somewhere with a little more privacy," he answered, increasing his pace, because apparently he was in a hurry to get there.

Round a corner and down a corridor they went and as they did fewer and fewer people crossed their path. Once they got behind some huge crates he stopped. This was apparently as much privacy as you could get around here. He turned towards her and immediately she started fumbling with words, wanting to tell him that she thought he had done a great job tonight, but she never got that far, because he leaned down and kissed her until she was breathless and barely able to stand on her own two feet anymore.

"Hi," he smiled when he pulled back.

"Um... Hi. We've already covered that part, I think," she laughed suddenly feeling lightheaded. So much for him not wanting her anymore.

Talking about wanting, her eyes incidentally travelled over his muscular chest. The positive reaffirmation she had gotten from his kiss made her grin a cheeky little grin. "I seem to remember something about you telling me you'd be shirtless today, so I'd finally be able to see your famed tats," she tugged playfully at his shirt and instantly made a face. "Ewwww sweaty!" The fabric felt damp and warm.

He smirked. "I gotta say, this might be the one time in half a year I kept my shirt on during a show... But we're getting off topic. I seem to recall you just saying something like 'ewww' in reference to me. That's your first genuine response after not seeing me for two whole weeks?" He leaned down so his face was right in front of hers. "Really?! You have got to be kidding me, hotel girl."

"Well... Ummm..." she grinned back at him nervously. "You're aware you're kind of sweaty right now?"

"Yeah. Want a hug?" A crooked and rather malicious grin appeared on his features.

She smiled at him sweetly. "No."

"Have the shirt then." And in a swift motion he pulled it over his head and pressed it into her hands.

No shirt, her mind tried to whisper to her and then it got lost in all those abs, pecs, muscular upper arms and tattoos. "Culture, alienation, boredom, despair?" she read loudly, not quite sure whether it was appropriate to look, but not able to look anywhere else. The damp shirt was still clutched in her hands, but that didn't register with her yet. She was still staring at his upper body.

"Some Manic Street Preachers lyrics," he explained casually as if it was a passing thought and grabbed her hand. "What do you think? Locker room first, then showers… Me not you" he clarified with a smirk when she briefly stopped walking. "After that we're definitely out of here. Sound good?"

She nodded numbly and obediently walked after him, feeling overwhelmed by the chaos backstage and the situation in general. The bizarreness of walking behind a man dressed only in boots, knee and arm pads and wrestling trunks only occurred to her as it happened. She was still smiling softly about it, when he led her inside the locker room and announced she was supposed to wait there while he went and took a shower.

Only so much amusement could be had from staring at an empty locker room, so she got out her cell phone. The song lyrics tattooed on his arm still occupied her thoughts, so she started looking for the band and eventually ended up browsing through some of their songs on YouTube. She put on her headphones for that, producing them sort of circumstantially from her bag. As usual the wire was muddled up, so she rolled her eyes and spent a couple of seconds unfurling it before she could indulge her curiosity any further. She became quite engrossed with watching videos on YouTube, so engrossed in fact that she didn't even notice when Stuart came back.

He found her staring down at the screen of her phone and silently crept closer, his duffel bag on his shoulder. She was just watching the video to "Little Baby Nothing"_. _He only needed to see a couple of seconds to recognize it. A tender smile swept over his face. She still hadn't seen him.

The fact that she took such an interest in him was... It was terrific, something else entirely. He led his bag slip from his shoulder and gently pulled out her left earbud.

"So? The Manics any good?"

He sat down opposite of her on the second wooden bench inside the room, leaning back against the lockers behind him with a sigh. His stretched out legs, sort of invading her space. It didn't bother her too much. Actually it was rather nice. It suggested a certain level of intimacy and she certainly didn't mind that.

His question however was something else. She made a face. "Honestly?"

"Yup," he said popping the 'p' in that little word with gusto.

"They're too poppy for my taste...," she said cautiously.

His face fell. "Oh, booh! I don't believe it. Too poppy..." he sneered. "So what do you usually listen to if the Manics are too poppy for you? Obviously Depeche Mode." He nudged his head at her T-shirt in a condescending manner. "And apart from that? Metallica? The Offspring? Rammstein?"

There was something about her facial expression that must have betrayed her.

"You've got to be bloody kidding me... I was actually right with one of those, wasn't I?" he smirked in a rather complacent way.

"Yeah, well... Metallica and The Offspring are classics," she tried to reason with him.

"I think the only band who's allowed to have a claim on that would be The Smiths, but let's get back to the Maniacs. Let's hear the rest of what you have to say about one of my favourite bands..."

"I did like 'Autumn Song'."

"Good, so maybe there is hope for you yet."

"I mean you've got to give a band credit for making the line 'Baby, what have you done to your hair?' so memorable. Makes me wonder whether it's ever used at hair shows," she was teasing him now, which was uncharted territory for both of them. Up until now she hadn't felt comfortable enough around him to do so, but since she had already put her foot in it with her previous comment about how the Manics were too poppy, she thought that she might as well give it a try. It couldn't make things any worse.

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. Regarding her with his eyebrows raised, he blew out a breath. "You know that teenage Stu would have dumped you instantly for that comment?"

"What about adult Stu?"

"He's more mature obviously. He'll have to weigh your numerous negative attributes against your significantly fewer positive ones first," he said leaning back again against the locker, crossing his arms over his chest with a complacent smirk.

She frowned. "My numerous negative attributes? Which ones?"

"One... You're too nice," he actually counted off those points of on his fingers, "Two... You don't like the Manics. Blasphemy, I might add. Three... You are absolutely clueless about what it is I do for a living."

"And the positive ones?"

"You're into football. You're smart... And beautiful. And just the right amount of complicated."

"Hah! Those were already four points in my favour right there," she said triumphantly, getting up from her seat to brandish her index finger in his face with a huge grin.

He grabbed her hand and pulled her close, so she eventually had no choice but to sit on his lap. Her pulse quickened when he did that. Having someone want to have casual physical contact with her was still very new to her. It had been too long since that happened, in fact more than a year and because of that she had started to question her attractiveness and frequently asked herself whether she should buy a bunch of cats or look up the address of a nunnery. Perhaps she wouldn't have to resort to those drastic actions after all. Hesitantly and with a shy smile she slung her arms around his neck.

He was unaware of those thoughts inside her head and just continued to talk. "I reckon point one and two can't really be fixed," he told her looking at her with a pensive frown. "But three is fixable, wouldn't you say? Also, in all fairness, I've never been quite sure whether 'being too nice' isn't something that is both a good and a bad quality."

"If you knew me better you'd already be aware I have many, many more extremely convincing good attributes..."

"Such as?"

"Why don't you find out about them? Actually, why am I trying to convince you to keep me?" her eyes narrowed, as she continued to tease him, "I once dumped a guy because he put a glass of cold beer on a wooden table top and it left watermarks. Your failings are far more obvious than that."

"So, you're pedantic as well? Thing's are not looking good for you right now," he shook his head with mock regret. "You're this close to being dumped," he held up his thumb and his index finger. They were almost touching. "Careful now, the answer to the next question will decide over your future happiness." She let out a little snort when he said 'future happiness', because he was laying it on pretty thick now. "Can you cook?"

Of all the questions to ask this was a pretty bad one. It immediately conjured some memories she would have loved to keep hidden away in her subconscious. Cooking had always been a moot point in her relationship with Tony. Being a chef, he had rarely allowed her inside the kitchen at home and if he did, he had taken apart every single little thing she prepared, even sandwiches. "I wouldn't know," she said, "I can't be the judge of that." Her face had immediately become closed off there, every trace of amusement gone. The difference was quite noticeable and very disconcerting, at least from Stuart's perspective.

She got up from his lap almost immediately, which had him blink a couple of times in surprise and wonder what he had done wrong. Other than that he didn't let her see he was taken aback by what had just happened.

"Do you wanna go?" She asked, already picking up her bag and he quickly agreed. Before actually leaving, he put on a baseball cap and a pair of sunglasses, so he wouldn't draw any attention on himself. While they were walking, he was thinking about her reaction and by the time they had reached the car he had come to some kind of conclusion. He had really been dense. Her ex was a chef, so talking about cooking was not a smart move. But for some reason her hypersensitivity when it came to anything concerning Tony irked him. He wanted the past to just be that: the past. Right now that Tony problem was very much in the present and he needed to fix that, him of all people, the guy who had once chosen to become a researcher and occupy himself with marine creatures because he thought humans to be too messy, unlikable and complicated.

"I'm starving," he proclaimed when they pulled out of the parking lot. "So let's talk strategy."

Mercifully the corner of her mouth curled up again. "There's a strategy required?"

"You've got no idea, darling. Have you read 'Gulliver's Travels'?" Luckily she nodded. He continued. "Do you remember what trouble the Lilliputians had to go through to feed Gulliver? That's more or less what we're talking about here. So when I say I'm starving it's not an exaggeration," he threw her a pitying look. "Home-cooked meal, take-away or restaurant?"

"Take-away?" she suggested.

He frowned. "My vote's home-cooked meal."

"What? You want me to cook for you?!"

"No, whoever said that? There's the very real danger of me having angered you so much at this point that you're probably already contemplating poisoning my food. So to ensure my survival, I was thinking we could prepare dinner together. How's that sound, luv?"

"Whatever do you have against take-away?"

"I've been one the road for two weeks," he looked at her over the rim of his glasses. "So there's your answer."

"Why did you even ask me then?"

"To maintain the illusion of free will. I figured it couldn't hurt to keep you motivated."

* * *

Of all the things she thought she'd do with him when he got back, buying groceries didn't make the top of the list. It was so disconcertingly normal.

He was the typical male shopper, all about high protein stuff and hardly any greens, whereas she threw salad and fruit in the cart. After a while they were satisfied with the amount of food in the cart and proceeded to the checkout counter.

When a woman cut the queue right in front of them without even saying sorry, the fun was over however. Natalie saw Stuart's nostrils flare. "Excuse me!" he roared at the offender, a well-dresses business woman in her forties, who after flinching at the tone of his voice, turned to look him over with disdain, taking in his muscular frame that stretched the arms of his polo shirt, his jeans and the baseball cap. "I know standing behind each other in a queue like civilized people is a lot to ask for, but apparently some feeble and very simple intellects are not even able to grasp the simple concept of queuing..."

Natalie suppressed a little gasp at the rudeness of his words. The woman he had addressed like that shook her head. "Unbelievable! I've got an important business appointment. I don't need to put up with this..." 'This' clearly meant Stuart as a person.

The Brit was seething next to her, doubtlessly already preparing an even ruder comeback in his mind. Natalie laid a calming hand on his forearm before he chose to permanently imprint the pattern of the cart's front in the woman's behind.

"Calm down. It's not worth it," she whispered to him.

"I just can't stand ignorant people with no manners whatsoever," he rumbled, his voice loud enough for the woman to hear as she put her items on the conveyor belt at the checkout. She shot them another dirty glance and Stuart glared right back.

"Have you ever considered that being rude to them is not really a solution?"

"How else are they going to learn their lesson?" He looked at Natalie with narrowed eyes, which made her lick her lips nervously. It seemed important that she got the answer to that particular question right.

"Look, the way I see it life is an endless sequence of events determined by the principle of cause and effect. The things you do affect other people. How you treat them effects how they treat you in return. Isn't it more likely that you'll react more favourably to person who smiles at you than to someone who's rude to you?"

She waited for his response and prepared herself for being mocked till he ran out of breath. She didn't have to wait too long until he spoke. But the expected mockery didn't set in. Instead he smiled benevolently and laid his arm around her shoulder, pulling her against his side. "I knew there was a reason I could tolerate your company so well. I stand by my earlier words though. You're too nice for this world."

She blushed a little. "Yeah. Well, getting upset over something minor like someone cutting the queue is pointless," she said with downcast eyes. "Happens all the time."

"Something minor? Not where I come from." He said it in a tone of voice that implied behaviour like that was the harbinger of the downfall of civilization.

She looked up at him with her eyebrows raised. "So you Brits take queuing very seriously..."

"Seriously? Are you kidding me? We bind the arms and legs of offenders to four Mini Coopers and tear them to pieces in the middle of Trafalgar Square..." he scoffed, obviously joking.

"A little extreme. But it seems to work out nicely for you folks. I thought you had the reputation of being very well-mannered..."

"Yup, well-mannered, very civilized people, that's us, despite those Mini Cooper incidents."

She extricated herself from his embrace. They were next in line and needed to put their items on the conveyor belt. "And how do you fit in there?" she asked pointedly as she grabbed a hold of a plastic bag filled with apples and took it from the cart.

"What do you mean how do I fit in there?" he helped her load their groceries on the conveyor belt.

"Well, you're not always very..."

He stopped and looked at her expectantly.

"Very..." she licked her lips. Oh my!

"Polite?" he supplied.

"Yeah," she said cautiously.

"Allow me to demonstrate. Listen and learn, hotel girl," he announced with a villainous grin, which incidentally conjured the image an evil magician in her head who was about to pull a carnivorous bunny from his top hat.

Apparently he was a little like Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde when it came to manners. At will he could display them rather well, as he showed her in the following minutes. It was an eerie experience. He charmed the woman behind the checkout corner right out of her socks with his politeness, his accent, his smiles and his polished manners, making pleasant and deceptively casual small-talk about all kinds of things while she scanned their different items like in a trance. To round off the surreal experience he paid and motioned at a baffled Natalie to the lead the way to her car where he further weirded her out by loading the plastic bags in the trunk and holding the door open for her.

"Aaaaaaah! You've made your point, okay? Can you please stop that now?" she said finally unable to take it any more. He was still holding open the door for her and she turned around abruptly on the other side of it. For a couple of moments it looked like she wouldn't be getting in after all.

"Why?" he asked innocently.

"Because it weirds me out and it's all sorts of wrong. Also, you don't really mean it."

He put his arms on top of the car door and leaned down a little, so his face was right in front of hers. "But I do mean every second of it when you're concerned."

"Really?" His confession made her smile and take a step closer. His eyes had an amused sparkle to them as he regarded her, while the rest of his face tried to project an almost bored air of nonchalance. On the surface he seemed to be very one-dimensional, a rude guy, who was always bad-tempered, but underneath it all there was a lot going on, she realized. In fact she was fascinated by what was going on there. It was not that he was being dishonest about who he was. He was very clear about that. His opinions and convictions were strong and he voiced them without hesitance and to the point of being brutal, which mostly seemed to suffice to keep people away. But if they'd just take the time and trouble to ask to for an explanation as to his supposed rudeness, more people would think of him as a good man. Like she did. She really did think of him like that, she realized right there.

That thought made her smile grow bigger and brighter and without any reservation she leaned in and kissed him.

"Not that I'm opposed to being snogged in the middle of a parking lot, but I can't help but feel deeply worried for you and your state of mind," he announced after she had pulled back. "Either you've just rewarded me for being rude to the rest of the world, which is indeed highly out of character or you're just desperate..."

She didn't answer, but got into the car instead. He followed.

"So?" he asked expectantly after he had strapped himself into the security belt on the passenger seat.

"None of the above," she grinned and started the engine. "That was just for being you..."

"You must be under some kind of misconception then, I usually get slapped in the face by the other sex for being myself. That is if I'm being myself around them... It's usually not very constructive."

"Are you being yourself right now?"

"Ask yourself one thing, sunshine, would someone consciously choose to be like that?"

"Well at any rate, it works very well for me," she admitted, trying not to look at him as she drove.

He reached over and his hand squeezed her knee for a second there. It was a nice gesture and made her feel a wave of affection for him.

"That's because you're not like everyone else.

"Yes, because I'm exceptionally jaded."

She saw him make a face out of the corner of her eyes. "That wasn't what I said. Now stop being sorry for yourself. It's not very becoming."

She chuckled. Because what else are you supposed to do when someone makes a comment like that and slapping him is off the menu?

The rest of the drive was spent without talking. It was a short drive anyway. Nevertheless his words from earlier still kept echoing in the back of her mind when they unloaded the shopping bags from the car and stocked his kitchen with their contents. She was leaning against the counter, watching him pensively as he put away the rest of the perishable groceries in his fridge. A little smile was tugging at her mouth and he noticed it right away when he turned around.

"Why the smug grin? Did you check out my bum just there while I was stocking the bottom drawer?"

She flushed and spluttered, which made him smirk.

"I am onto something there, right?" he pointed his index finger at her.

"No, well, yeah... maybe. Actually, this is still about the part where I'm not like everybody else..."

"Yes?"

"How did you mean that? I mean, where you being ironic? Did you mean in it a good way or a bad way?"

"I meant it in thoroughly good way, of course," he clarified, slowly advancing on her. There was a come hither look in his eyes, and a smug grin on his lips, while he positioned his hands left and right of her hips on the counter behind her. His body was pressing against hers and he was so close now she had to crane back her head to meet his eyes.

The fact that he was invading her space took some getting used to, not that it was unwanted, but he was really quite imposing standing at 6ft 7 and ready to devour her. It made her nervous. Her hand touched his deltoid, the one with the tattoo which consisted of unidentifiable bluish black shapes against a red backdrop. Part of it was peaking out from under the short sleeve of his shirt. She traced the black ink with her thumb.

"What is it anyway?" she asked in a thoughtful and soft voice, trying to distract him.

"An attempt to cover up a juvenile mistake," he told her, not letting himself be distracted as he nuzzled the left side of her face with his. She let out a sigh and he laughed softly. "If you don't feed me soon, I might start to eat you up instead, you know." The words were deliberately spoken in her ear, in a low voice that was full of implications that evoked thoughts of bedrooms and nudity and such. At any rate it made goose bumps run down her spine and the little hairs on her arm stand up.

For a moment she was heavily tempted to give into what she felt, and she was not so hypercritical to not admit to herself that it was lust, but she was also aware that however ready her body might have been, her mind was thoroughly lagging behind. Sure, for a moment, hell, who was she kidding? For the rest of the night, it would have surely felt nice to give in, but she wasn't prepared to deal with the emotional aftermath of it all. 'Prepared' was perhaps not the right word. She was still reeling from the shock of the recent death of her father and devastating aftermath of her marriage and didn't need to pile another potential emotional trauma on top of that. She just wasn't ready. Not yet anyway.

She gave him a gentle shove and shook her head. "You're getting ahead of yourself..." For merely the fraction of a second a disappointed look flashed over his face before he carefully schooled his features into an expression of nonchalance again. This time though, he added a mocking grin in the mix, because apparently his default reaction just didn't seem to be enough to veil his true feelings. Since her gaze was still firmly schooled on his features, she couldn't help but noticed all of those things, so she hurried to clarify the statement some more. "Fine. WE are getting ahead of ourselves."

"Right. I should think that you've gotten the pronoun wrong there..."

She mockingly smiled at him, while secretly she thought something along the lines of 'You poor, smug bastard!' Perhaps this time he had taken things a little too far because in addition to thinking that, she also felt the need to cut him down a little. "I'm afraid you will have to try much harder to seduce me. I'm not that easy."

"Hear! Hear!" he laughed. He was clearly amused by her unexpected gumption. "Feistier than I thought... So what does it take, luv? You don't mind if I get my notepad and sharpen my imaginary pencil first, do you?"

She raised her chin and straightened her back, which, he had to grudgingly admit, gave her a certain regal air. "First of all: You would need to be less obvious about it. Secondly: I'm hungry too," his eyebrow rose and she hurried to add the next words. "For food!"

"Try as you might, you can't deny there was something between us just there," he told her. He was still standing very close to her, his body warmth radiating into her, the smell of his cologne tickling her nose pleasantly.

"Who's denying that? I'm not denying anything," she said softly.

"Could have fooled me."

She threw him an admonishing look, which only ended up being mildly chastising.

"Whatever. Let's not get distracted by minor details like that. I believe you were about to let me in on the big secret of what it takes to seduce you," he made an impatient hand gesture, motioning at her to continue talking.

She frowned, her forehead in wrinkles as she looked up at him. "I'm not sure I want to continue right now..."

"Please do. I feel like it might save me a lot of trouble. Possibly even slaps in the face..."

"Well," there was still a slightly suspicious look on her face as she regarded him, "I just think that if I gave in right now, neither of us would benefit from it. For one, from an emotional standpoint, I'm not ready to do that by a long shot," something about the serious expression in his eyes told her he was listening very intently now. Eventually he even nodded, which confirmed her in that belief. His reaction could have been infinitely worse. She continued to speak. "On the other hand there is also the fact that I believe... I've heard... erm... well, in my experience men enjoy the chase. It must be something deeply rooted in the male DNA. Besides it would be too easy if you didn't have to put a little effort into it."

"Deeply rooted in our DNA," he repeated. His hand almost automatically went to his chin. He stroked his beard and eventually a grin materialized on his face like he had just recalled an amusing anecdote. "So is the desire to be chased also deeply rooted in the female DNA?"

"I don't know. Probably."

"So do you want a man to make a fool out of himself to have you or do you prefer an honest straightforward 'I want you'?"

Her heart was hammering away loudly inside her ribcage when he said those words. His voice was so low and suggestive that it got right under her skin. In particular the words 'I want you' had a big effect on her. He seemed to have directed them more or less right at her.

She straightened her back, trying to maintain some semblance of composure. "It's not so much that a man is supposed to make a fool out of himself. He's supposed to prove that he has a serious interest in us. That he's not just after the one thing. It's about showing your appreciation. Basically it's about respect," she explained, surprising herself by actual being able to verbalize for once what she thought under his intense gaze.

"I get that," he nodded. "I do. But the passage between showing your sincere appreciation and becoming a slobbering little lapdog sometimes is rather fluid. Nature has equipped us with a sex drive and some species go a little further than only sacrificing their dignity for sex. They even sacrifice their lives to be able to mate."

She frowned. "Really? That seems a little implausible..."

"Well, take salmon for instance. They migrate upstream for hundreds of miles, pass from saltwater to freshwater, just to mate, spawn and die there."

She narrowed her eyes, unable to believe what she had just heard. It seemed like she had inadvertently traipsed straight into an animal documentary on the Discovery Channel, but strangely enough she was still inside Stuart's kitchen, discussing the question of whether they should already become intimate with each other at this point of their relationship or not. It was a bizarre situation. So bizarre in fact that she chose to investigate how on earth he knew so much about salmon and their mating habits. It showed how little she actually knew about him. Was he some weirdo who was into fish? Did he watch animal documentaries when he was bored? Did he have an eidetic memory like Sheldon Cooper from 'Big Bang Theory'?

"How would you know about salmon and their mating habits?" she asked, still wearing a rather disbelieving expression on her face.

"Well, darling," he drawled, "have you ever considered that maybe being a wrestler is not the only thing I'm good at? Most of us actually had a proper job before we chose to make wrestling a full-time occupation."

"Right. And yours was?"

"Just so you know, I'm not some kind of imbecile. I hold a degree in marine biology and even worked in a science laboratory for a while." He proudly buffed his chest there. Apparently he liked to brag about his academic achievements.

"Seriously? With a white lab coat and goggles and all?" Her eyes were big and round at this point of their conversation. Strangely enough she could somehow imagine him working bent over a microscope in a white lab coat. It was disconcerting how attractive that image was somehow.

"Did I just see a glint in your eyes there?" he smirked. "Do you have a thing for white coats? I still might have it somewhere if you're that much into that..."

"I'm not into lab coats," she actually made a face and gave his shoulder a little shove, which accomplished nothing besides making him laugh.

"So, what are you into?" he asked casually. Well, she supposed she had walked straight into that one.

"I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours," she told him, trying to keep up a calm facade, even though that question made her rather nervous. She was not used to talking about stuff like that. Especially not while someone pinned her to the kitchen corner. He seemed to sense that too and gave her a little more room by taking a step back.

"Sounds like a fair deal," he agreed. He waited for a few seconds for her to start talking, but he was expecting too much of her there.

"All right. Why don't I go first?" He said ironically. "I'm into women who are a little mysterious. Who have a backbone, but also a fragile side to them," his gaze was very intense when he said that, almost to the point of making her feel uncomfortable.

"How... erm... How do I fit into that picture?" She asked shyly.

"Fits you to a T, sweetness."

"Is that how you see me?"

"Don't you see yourself like that?" He frowned.

"No," she lowered her head, almost feeling ashamed. "But I wish I were like that."

"You are," he tried to reaffirm her.

"Thanks..."

"You don't agree."

"No, I'm not like that. Yet. Maybe some day I'll be again."

"That's already something. A small step in the right direction at least," he smirked. "Your turn," he motioned at her with his hand.

She licked her lips feeling idiotic, ridiculous and self-conscious. "I don't know," she said evasively.

"Please," he scoffed. "No one gets to be your age without knowing what their into... Stop being a sissy, will you? I've already told you mine."

Upon realizing that there was no way out of this situation, quite inevitably her face flushed in embarrassment. "Well, erm... I like it when a man... knows what he wants," she stuttered ineptly. "When he's able to take the lead, but also give in and relinquish the control for a little while..."

He stepped closer to her again. It was because of her words. She had provoked that reaction in a way. The air between them seemed to sizzle. "I'll be sure to remember that," he whispered in her ear. "And I let you be in control if you want..." He didn't get to finish what he had wanted to say, because she gave him quite an energetic shove. It was fuelled by her embarrassment and for once made him actually take a couple of steps back, but probably only out of surprise. Also it made him chuckle.

She rolled her eyes in response and muttered his name in a mock annoyed way, which made him smile. When she realized, that there was no use trying to better his behaviour, her thoughts turned back to more pressing matters. He supposed it also happened because her stomach emitted a soft growl. "How about we finally take care of dinner?" she asked, flushing a little, despite the decisive and commanding tone she had put into her voice.

He sighed and took another step back. "How boring! But dinner it is then. Steak and vegetables sound good?" She nodded.

"Let's stick with the anthropologically predestined roles, if you don't mind. I'll take care of the meat, you do the vegetables. Fair nuff?"


	10. Scars

**Author's note: **** Hey! :-) I'm back. I sneaked off to Ireland for a bit there. But now I'm back and I have a new chapter for you. **

**My thanks to my beta the always awesome UntilNeverDawns. And of course to everyone reading and favoriting. I appreciate it. Really do.**

* * *

Preparing dinner together turned out to be a very peaceful activity, contrary to what Natalie had experienced in the past. He seasoned and prepared the meat, while she chopped the vegetables. Occasionally he would steal a carrot and noisily bite into it as he kept an eye on the steak inside the frying pan, a circumstance which would have sent Tony into a fit. Not the carrot eating of course, the fact that someone chose to prepare a steak in a pan and not on a grill.

It was a pleasant change that for once nobody criticized her for choosing to prepare something this way rather than that way, what was an even more pleasant change was that Stuart ate what she had cooked without taking everything about it apart like he was some judge in a cooking competition and she only a humble contestant. In his own characteristic gruff way he even complimented her about the food she had prepared and consequently made her smile as brightly as if she had just won a million dollars in the lottery.

Perhaps that was the reason why he chose to be gentlemanly, when she rose to carry the dirty dishes towards the kitchen. "Need a hand with those?"

"No," she shook her head. "I thought I saw a dish washer in your kitchen, so I'll manage just fine..."

"Then you surely won't mind if I stretch out on the couch for a second..."

"It's your house," she shot back in parting.

"Excellent," he replied and lied down on the couch with a groan.

It took her about ten minutes to clean up the kitchen and take care of the dishes. She approached the couch on silent feet. His eyes were closed and his breathing regular. He was sound asleep. A smile spread over her features. There was something utterly compelling about this tough man stretched out on the couch slumbering like a baby. It implied he trusted her, which she saw as quite the achievement, because he didn't seem to let a lot of people close. Then there was, of course, the fact that his face looked so peaceful while he slept. No crease between his eyebrows that outwardly indicated his skepticism, no frown, no scowl. Just complete peacefulness.

Her fingertips hovered close to his cheek for a second. The image of him sleeping there on the couch, provoked all kinds of strange feelings inside of her: an unidentifiable and very scary mixture of affection, tenderness and longing. The back of her hand traced over the side of his face. He wasn't sleeping too soundly, so that very gentle and fleeting caress was enough for him to open his eyes slowly and focus them on her. Perhaps it was the lighting, the setting sun was casting golden rays inside the house, but right now his eyes seemed to be a mossy green.

"You fell asleep," she tried to justify her actions, but if his soft smile was any sort of indication she didn't need to do that.

He reached out his own hand to touch her face. She probably had no idea how beautiful she was right now. With the sun back-lighting her silhouette he had to squint to make out her by now familiar features. The deep brown eyes, the high cheekbones, that perfect smile of hers that had so many variations and nuances. It captivated him every time, no matter whether it was melancholic or dorky or mischievous. He liked those last two varieties especially, because it meant she felt comfortable enough not to try to be someone else around him.

Right now, however, her smile was on the verge of shy. He wanted to reassure her with a kiss and sit up, but a sudden wave of pain shot through his back as he moved.

"Bugger!" he swore and flinched. "Damn that stupid Adrian Neville for planting his bleeding boot in my back! I sure as hell didn't notice, but he got me good when I wasn't looking."

He thought that his swearing had utterly and completely killed the mood, but in spite of being scandalized because of his way of expressing himself, she seemed preoccupied about his wellbeing instead. Apparently she had already spent too much time around him.

Very much a practical woman, like he already knew her to be, she gently moved his hands away from the aching spot on his back and tugged up his shirt.

"No bruising," she proclaimed as she stood behind him and regarded his back. Seconds later her cool fingertips touched his skin. "Does that hurt?"

"No, not nearly as much as it hurts my male pride to admit that since there's no bruise, the pain in my back probably just means I'm getting old..."

Her fingers remained in place for a couple of seconds. She seemed indecisive about what to do next.

"Scoot over," she said, finally making a decision.

He did as he was told, waiting with anticipation for her next move. He didn't have to wait long. Very, very slowly the pressure of her fingers increased and she started to rub soothing circles on his skin.

It felt very good. Like she had done this before and had quite some experience with it. Probably for her ex. Well, he refused to think about him now. He let his head fall forward, while his hands rested on his knees. A long drawn exhale whooshed from his lips.

"How does that feel? Too much pressure? Should I stop?"

"You're doing okay," he tried to sound sarcastic but it just wouldn't happen. He felt far too mellow for that already.

"Okay." She sat down behind him. He could tell as much even with his eyes closed, because he could feel her warm body behind him and hear the not too subtle sound of the leather cushions announcing her movements. His T-shirt fell down again and made it more difficult for her to keep up those soothing circular motions of her fingers, because she couldn't see what she was doing anymore, so he made a sound of irritation and just shrugged off the offending garment.

She had not asked for him to do that, so for a second or two her fingers stilled and he waited, holding his breath, until she eventually started massaging his lower back again.

There was an amused tone in her voice when she spoke again. "So we're back on track with the general theme of this evening. If I remember correctly, it was you having to take of your shirt for me anyway..."

He let out a huffy chuckling sound. Her fingers wandered further up and glided along his vertebrae. Their progress was slow, because she took care to apply just the right amount of pressure, which made it feel especially good. He groaned in pleasure. The deep, masculine sound of it made her hands still again, but only for about a second.

About ten minutes into her massaging his back, he was so completely languid and mellow that she could have asked anything of him. He would have signed over his house and car to her gladly. Probably even his much treasured autograph of Sir Thomas Finnley. Consequently it took him several seconds to notice when her fingers moved from his back to his right upper arm. It seemed that she had only now spotted the scar that was stretching from upper back to his triceps. Apparently, instead of being repulsed by it, it fascinated her somehow, because her fingertips ghosted over it in a way that almost had him shiver pleasantly.

"What happened there? Looks dangerous..." She almost whispered.

"I am a rather dangerous man."

"Hmmm..." no verbal reply from her other than that. Nevertheless her fingers stopped moving and squeezed his shoulder gently. The gesture encouraged him to keep on talking.

When he spoke about the incident he would often adopt a bragging tone of voice, mostly because he thought it contributed to his bad-ass persona, but in his heart of hearts he didn't like speaking about that particular night. For her, however, he was willing to make an exception and perhaps even stop glorifying those events like he usually did.

"It happened one night in some dark alley in Liverpool. Some bloke wanted to rob me off a bunch of money I won in a bareknuckle fight... Probably the worst robbery in the history of robberies. The bloke stabbed me and tried to get away with my prize money. Let's just say I taught him a lesson. He didn't get very far," his words were casually spoken and with a quiet little scoff at the end. Like he was talking about something very trivial that had happened to him in the past. She wasn't so sure it was trivial. The scar looked pretty nasty and had it been a little further down, it could have probably been much worse. He could have died.

She wasn't sure how she felt about him having been stabbed with a knife, let alone the fact that he had been involved with something brutal like bareknuckle fighting. Violence was something she abhorred and didn't understand. His world seemed to be dominated by it. Suddenly the chasm between them seemed vast and unbridgeable. She removed her hands from his back.

"You're awfully quiet all of a sudden," he said, throwing her a look over his shoulder.

"I'm trying to digest the information you've just given me."

"Didn't you read about it when you first looked me up on the Internet?"

"All I did was read your character's profile on WWE website. I thought that bare-knuckle-fighting stuff was part of your gimmick. I didn't know it was true..."

She sounded sad somehow. Perhaps even disappointed. Her words made him turn around. Whatever it was that was about to follow, he had a feeling that it would be better if they were able to establish eye contact.

"So are you afraid of me now?" he asked. It seemed the right question to ask because she was avoiding looking at him.

She raised her head and finally met his gaze. "No... It just makes me see you in a whole different light. That's all..."

"Not a good one, I suppose." Instead of an answer her gaze stayed glued to his features. His crooked nose that had stopped being particular noticeable to her at some point now reclaimed her attention. Since right now she was rather prone to following her impulses, she reached out her fingers and gently traced them over the back of it.

"Yes, that's where this comes from," he told her. His voice gruff, but not ungentle.

"I don't get you," she said letting her hand sink to her side in a gesture of resignation.

"Nobody asked you to. And I certainly don't expect you to," he shrugged his shoulders. "If I was looking for some able to make sense of me, I'd go and find myself a therapist, not a woman."

She ignored that last comment in favor of the more important topic they were discussing. "Do you enjoy violence?" Her eyes narrowed when she asked that question.

He laughed softly and shook his head. The fact that she was posing that particular question to a professional wrestler of all people was sort of hilarious. His humor left him entirely, however, when he noticed how she was still staring at him. "On a rational level - no. I don't condone it. In some cases, however, it's a necessary evil. Human beings are not purely defined by reason as you're surely aware and sometimes that's the only way they can be stopped..."

"Maybe that's so. I don't know..." she shook her head.

"Luv, perhaps you haven't noticed, but I'm not exactly what you would call a philanthropist. I hate ignorance, artificiality, manipulation and lies and those things exist in abundance in our society..."

"So you would still act the same if you could turn back time?"

"What do you mean? Would I beat that tosser up again?"

She nodded.

He sighed. It was a difficult question. That was why he partially evaded it. "Back then, in Liverpool, I was an angry young man who expressed his disgust with society by hitting people in the face for money. I don't reckon that anger bit has changed much since then, just that I'm not that young anymore and I have come to understand that physical violence results in charmingly crooked noses and ugly scars. Fate is packing a pretty mean right hook if you tempt it..."

His last sentence was something she agreed with thoroughly. That still didn't get her any further though when it came to figuring him out.

So what was he saying there? That he didn't resort to violence anymore because he didn't like to tempt fate? She posed that particular question to him, because she couldn't help herself. Again she inadvertently amused him with it.

"Sweetness, wasn't it you who said something about cause and effect earlier, back at the supermarket? Life is nothing but a sequence of events caused by chance and by the principles of cause and effect. Violence causes violence. Words, however mostly cause more words and hopefully encourage thinking. If you keep that in mind, they strike me as the more effective weapon and smarter option in the greater scheme of things."

When he had finished talking, silence settled over them. They looked at each other then. It was all very up close and personal, because they were sitting only mere inches apart. Her eyes were not frightened anymore, which he chalked down as a point in his favor. There was a brief moment of insecurity in her gaze, when they subtly shifted from his face to his chest. He tried to give her time to adjust to the situation. After all this was a huge leap forward for them, a new level of intimacy. He had just come clean to her in a way that was much deeper and meaningful than he had to any other person in the last couple of years. So her noticing his physical nakedness right now wasn't lacking a certain irony, when what he said had left him more vulnerable and naked than merely taking of his shirt.

"Better now?" he asked eventually.

"Uh-huh," she answered. Her fingers trailed down from his shoulder to a place on his pectoral muscle, right above his heart where they stopped.

"Since we're already talking about cause and effect, tell me what's the effect of a simple caress?" she asked him, her gaze wavering between shyness and provocation. The chasm between them had shrunken down to mere inches thanks to his words. He intrigued her as much as ever. Perhaps now even more so.

"Do you want to find out?"

She nodded, worrying her bottom lip briefly, then releasing it, which inevitably drew his attention to it.

He had been waiting to kiss her for a while now and at this point he was fed up with talking and waiting any longer. He crushed his mouth to hers. Her reaction came with a delay, but it wasn't tame or surprised like he had expected. She kissed him back and that quite fiercely and possessively. For a second there they both let go of all reason, which eventually led to them ending up in a rather precarious position.

He slowly broke the kiss, wanting to look at her, because he could never quite get enough of the look on her face when he had just kissed her. There always was that expression of wonder and affection there, but he got distracted from that now thanks to several factors: first and foremost of all the feeling of her body underneath his. When that particular sensation filtered into his consciousness, his rational mind wanted to wave him goodbye there for a second, especially since he became aware of the way her, albeit still very much clothed, but nevertheless soft and very much there, bosoms pressed into his chest. And also of the way they rose and fell so quickly. He licked his lips. They still tasted of her. Very distracting.

He spent the next couple of moments staring at her breathlessly, wondering what to do next. She was a grown woman, mostly well adjusted and able to take adult decisions, but then again there was what he liked to call the 'Tony-factor' in his head. Somehow that stupid, cheating thrice-damned sodding bastard had managed to turn a sexy, self-confident woman into a shy little girl. The problem was that she wasn't very shy right now, but like she had pointed out earlier, they were getting ahead of themselves. She was not ready for what he wanted, not by a long stretch. And what he wanted was neither quick nor innocent. He wanted to make her his in every possible way. What infuriated him though, was the thought, no, the knowledge, that had they met prior to the 'Tony disaster' happening, she probably would have been well on board with this.

Because taking flight and long cold showers were his only options now, he got up abruptly. His whole body protested, because it had been counting on something different to happen. Actually he had been counting on something different to happen as well. Now he had cock-blocked himself by being rational and sickeningly noble. Terrible situation.

"Aaaaaaaaah!" He let out a roar of utter frustration and anger. His anger as well as his wish to do right by her forced him to start pacing his own living room. Back and forth, back and forth. "Bugger! Bugger! Bugger!" _Huge strides, breathe deep, calming breathes through your nose._ It didn't work. He was still livid. If he ever got his hands on that Tony-bloke again, he'd tear that bleeding wanker into tiny little shreds.

"Stu?"

His anger evaporated instantly at the timid tone of her voice. He must have looked frightening. Like a raging bull. No wonder she had that insecure look on her face.

He stared at her for a good long while like he wanted to hypnotize her, then eventually said 'sorry' in a rather contrite tone of voice. That word came as much as a surprise to him as to her.

"Sorry you kissed me?" Her eyebrows nearly disappeared in her hairline.

"No," he scoffed. "I'm utterly and genuinely not sorry about that, but you said you weren't ready. I, on the other hand, sweetheart, am very much ready right now..."

"Oh," she said. It was an 'oh' of realization that eventually made a sly grin appear on her face. "Oh," she repeated.

_Some day I'll have you making that particular sound at considerably higher pitch and with more conviction and maybe with my name added in the mix_... His own face settled into a smirk upon those thoughts. "Yeah, 'oh' sums it up all right."

"So what do we do now?" she asked and it didn't escape him how her eyes seemed to have a habit of straying from his face to his chest. It made him grin triumphantly.

"Seriously now?" he laughed. "Darling, that's about the meanest question you could pose to a bloke in my state. We both know the default answer to this."

"Hmmm," she made a face, wavering between feeling uncomfortable and intrigued.

"Just in case you were wondering. It would be sex," his gaze bore into her with an intensity that would have probably sufficed to set something on fire and there was a slightly predatory grin on his face. She had never seen that expression on his face before and she had to admit that it excited her, but also made her feel nervous, because quite inevitably she asked herself if once they did get to that point, she would be able to satisfy his appetite, let alone fulfill his expectations.

"You're awfully quiet right now. Does that mean I got you scared?" he asked, crossing his arms in front of his chest. The move accentuated his pectoral muscles and biceps.

"Not scared," she shook her head. "Just afraid I might not be able to fulfill your expectations."

He smirked. "Well, I could easily reassure you, by grabbing your hand and guiding it in a certain place..."

"Oh my Gosh, don't say that!" she blushed profusely and covered her face. Her behavior made him chuckle and his eyes sparkle mischievously. There was a playful side to him after all. The playfulness of a panther, playing with a little feeble mouse and she very much felt like the mouse now.

"Does that mean you're a prude?" he asked. His tongue traced over his teeth. Contrary to common prejudice about Brits they were perfectly straight and white.

"No," she said after a moment of hesitance, "just very much out of practice..."

He took a step closer. "So, tell me, hotel girl, how do you feel about prospect of getting your hands on me? Afraid?"

"No."

"So what then?"

Again it occurred to her how different the conversation would have gone with someone aware of social etiquette. Talking to Stuart was always very purpose orientated. He quickly got to the matter of things which meant that his conversation partner was in for a wild ride and had to inevitable venture beyond his comfort zone. This was well beyond hers. She gulped, looked down at her jittery hands and tried to normalize her breathing. When after a while she had calmed down, she felt ready to meet his eyes again.

"I feel..." he was practically hanging from her lips. It was a little disconcerting. "I feel nervous... like I haven't in a very long time. You're so different from what I'm used to. So direct. So straightforward. I feel like that might extent to every aspect of your personality..."

"What if it did?"

"Then apart from making me nervous, it would also make me curious."

"And...?"

"And nothing?"

He gave her a look like he wanted to say 'come on'.

"Excited," she breathed finally and downcast her eyes. "Aroused."

He laughed. "So there we are again on the subject of long, very cold showers..." his tone of voice that was equal parts amused and exasperated, made her look up at him.

"You wanted to know," she accused him and got up from the sofa in her indignation.

"I want a lot of things..." Again there was that predatory expression in his eyes.

"Stuart..." she said his name softly as if she wanted to admonish him, but took a step towards him nevertheless.

"So how curious are you?" he asked her, also took a step towards her. "Curious enough to be a little adventurous?"

She smiled. "Maybe..."

"Maybe," he repeated with a smirk. "Afraid?"

"No."

"Tempted and nervous?"

"Yes."

"Then we should at least give it a try, don't you think?" he suggested and crossed the distance between them with one last step.

He assumed she agreed because she willingly fell into his arms and allowed him to kiss her senseless. He took the opportunity to let his hands slip underneath her shirt. His short fingernails trailed over her skin with something like desperation. The feeling of desperate longing increased when she reacted favorably to his touch. His teeth bit the side of her neck. Not enough to leave a mark, but enough to draw a sigh from her. He made it look almost like an accident when he unhooked her bra, which allowed him to trace down his hands the entirety of her back. Her skin was so smooth and soft. He could have taken off her shirt now to have a better look. Probably even press his lips against her skin and taste her. But he didn't. It would have been a step too far and he wanted to at least create the illusion that the situation was still contained and under control.

Control - funny word. It didn't feel like he had it anymore and she was struggling with that too, particularly when his hands went to the front of her body. His fingers traced up her ribcage and she kissed him with urgency. He slipped his hands under her bra and pushed it impatiently out of the way. Without any hesitance he cupped her breasts, which made her bite his bottom lip and moan when their mouths briefly separated. The sound of her moan instantly filled his mind with filthy little fantasies he all planned to enact with her in the near future.

But surprisingly somewhere in the back of his mind he knew he needed to come to his senses again. A little voice kept screaming: "Careful now! One wrong step and you'll ruin this!" It was unfair. He knew he could push her far enough to get what he wanted, but he would ultimately come to regret it. But that didn't mean he wasn't very much tempted right now. He wanted to chip away that shy façade of hers, because he had a feeling it was just a facade. At least judging by the way she was kissing him and running her nails down his back, he had reason to believe it was.

Her legs bumped into the back of the couch and she let out a little shriek when he pushed her back onto it with a devilish grin. Surprise mixed with arousal on her face when he slowly crawled on top of her. He pushed her t-shirt up a little in the process and pressed a kiss to a point next to her navel. He could see up close how she shivered and goose bumps formed on her skin. When he looked up into her face, he saw her clench her eyes shut and bite her bottom lip. Her hands were balled to cute little fists at her side. She was trying to resist him and he couldn't help but find it a little adorable.

He tried to pry her fists open by sticking his thumb in the middle and succeeded. It got her to look at him. He grinned and took her hand in his.

"Is that how you make a fist?"

She nodded uncertainly, not quite sure where this was going.

"If your thumbs are inside, you'll break it when you punch someone," he told her and curled up her hand again with her thumb on the outside. Her eyes were still on him when he raised her hand to his lips kissed her knuckles. It could have been innocent, but it didn't stay like that. His tongue dipped in between the space between two of her knuckles. It felt hot against her skin. Her mouth fell open and she gasped. It was an insinuation and not a very subtle one. Unfortunately it also didn't fail its purpose. She had almost reached a point where she no longer cared and wanted to rip his clothes off. Almost. She still was tense and a little nervous. It wasn't something he could make go away by kissing her. She just needed time.

Time. Time. Time. The word echoed in her mind. Her eyes searched for a clock and eventually fell on the green digits of his Blu-ray player that announced the time. It was well past 2 am. She started mumbling all kind of rational nonsense about needing to go home and having to go to work tomorrow. There was a derisive and very knowing grin on his face, but somehow he kept his tongue in check.

She extricated herself from his embrace, stood up and took a few stumbling steps. She tried to steady herself by holding on to the kitchen counter. Her hair was messy. Her top had ridden down one shoulder. The red color of her chin brought about the suspicion that someone wearing a beard had just kissed her quite thoroughly and also insistently.

"I need to leave," she proclaimed, her voice sounding rather huffy.

"I think we need to do something else," he said and tried to advance on her.

She stopped him by holding out her hand. It trembled a little.

"Not one step closer!"

"Why not?" he grinned, feigning innocence like a pro.

"I won't be accountable for my actions any longer if you get any closer..."

"Would that be so bad?"

"Stuart..."

"Natalie..."

They looked at each other there for a couple of seconds before he grudgingly relented.

"I must really like you," he growled, shaking his head in disbelief. He stared at her for a moment before he made up his mind. "All right. I'll take you home then," he announced with a scowl on his face. He was really nonplussed by the thought of the copious amounts of cold water that would later come spraying down on his body.

He stood up and her gaze inevitably fell to the front of his trousers. They had been hellishly uncomfortable for the last twenty minutes or so. Her eyes were huge. Hadn't she felt that when he was sprawled out on top of her?

He took a step closer to tip up her head. Her eyes looked into his and they were a little nervous, darting left and right. "Don't be a hypocrite, darling. It's not like you don't feel the same." His voice was a low and seductive rumble. She relented a little and nodded.

His hand fell down to his side. He walked past her and got a bottle of water from the fridge and took a sip. His eyes were on her the whole time. They were hungry.

She gulped, uselessly wishing for the umpteenth time that she was ready for more, but she wasn't. Her head fell to her chest.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled.

He chuckled and the sound made her look up. "For giving me a hard-on?" She made a face. Of course he would call things by their name and not traipse around them. "Don't be. Actually, would have been a little disconcerting if that hadn't happened..."

She flushed and it made him laugh softly. "Water?" he offered. "All that snogging and talking must have left you parched." He held out the bottle to her. She hesitantly took a couple of steps towards him. He passed her the bottle and she drank from it. He pulled her against his chest and kissed the crown of her head. After she had finished drinking and put the bottle down on the counter, they just stood like that for a while. It was nice.

He drove her home shortly after. His behavior on the way there was that of a consummate gentleman. On her front step he smiled at her and pressed lingering peck to her cheek before he let his hand glide over her hair once. This was goodbye for now, she understood even without having to hear him say the words. His behavior now was such a stark contrast to earlier, but somewhere underneath their way of interacting there was also residual sexual tension. It was in the way their respective touches lingered longer than necessary and also in the way they looked at each other.

She sighed, wavering between contentment and regret and got out her key. She hoped they would resume where they had left off when he would get back. Then suddenly something occurred to her. "Stu?"

"Yeah?" He turned around since he had already started walking to his car.

"When will you be back?"

"One week, maybe two. Depends on the promotional work I need to do."

"Will you call me?"

He sighed and smiled. There was a small amount of exasperation in his voice when he spoke. "Why wouldn't I?"

"Cause you hate talking over the phone," she smiled.

He laid his index finger at the tip of his nose and pointed his other one at her. "But that's never kept me so far... So not to worry. As long as you're not bothered too much by my foul mood and grunted responses..."

"I'm sure I won't mind. Sometimes a phone call is not really about having a conversation. It's about hearing someone's voice and feeling closer to that person," she told him gently.


	11. Loved, Feared, and Hated

Author's note:_ So welcome to the longest chapter so far. Lots of stuff going on here and there's also a Drew and Steve cameo (expect more of those). Thanks to my beta UntilNeverDawns who soldiered on bravely through this lengthy chapter without any complaints, being helpful, insightful and as always awesome. I hope you guys have fun reading. Would be great if you could drop me a few lines at the end, so hit the review button. _

* * *

She was getting back her inner strength. How did she know? Because her days started feeling different. Getting up in the mornings stopped being so damn hard and as the days passed, she found it easier to smile at people like she used to or do little things on the side, like finally unpacking the boxes inside her house.

Things at her job were going rather well too. They were actually just waiting for bigger group of Germans to drop by from a cruise. It was a group of 30 people, most of them pensioners and some of them had gotten in touch with her via email way before they arrived. In fact she had had almost daily correspondence with one Mr. Oppenheimer, asking her all sorts of questions.

When she had casually mentioned it to Stuart on the phone, it had triggered a rather odd response. "My advice? Don't mention the war," he had said and started laughing, obviously finding that particular information hilarious.

Of course she had wanted an explanation for his uncharacteristic enthusiasm about a group of Germans coming to her hotel. He had told simply told her to watch a British show called _Fawlty Towers_, first thing she got home, in order to avoid making any grave mistakes with her guests.

In fact there were a lot of mistakes to be made. Mr. Oppenheimer, a former head of the German ministry of environment and still very much a bureaucrat, had gotten in contact with her to tell her that he and his wife were vegans and wanted to continue that particular life style during their stay at the hotel as well. Furthermore, she was informed that a certain Mrs. Schmidt, a friend of the Oppenheimers who was traveling with her dog, needed special dog food for the animal which suffered from canine diabetes.

Since it was a rather busy period, they had lots of guests staying at the hotel, she delegated the task of informing the kitchen about the Oppenheimers vegan diet to Rani, while she took care of the needs of Mrs. Schmidt's four-legged, furry little companion.

When the group arrived at the hotel, it was impossible not to recognize them immediately. Apparently Tampa was the first stop on their tour of the East Coast judging by all those white legs, covered in varicose veins she got to see. Through the door she spotted an old lady clutching a little furry white dog to her chest like a little child. Obviously Mrs. Schmidt. The dress she wore was pink and red, covered in an obtrusive flower design that clashed with her white hair that had a purplish shimmer. Natalie smiled. She liked eccentric people.

The group waltzed in through the revolving door. Mr. Oppenheimer introduced himself almost immediately. He was very pale, sporting a pair of neatly trimmed whiskers, a squared shirt and beige Bermuda shorts. A glance further down revealed Birkenstocks and white tennis socks. Natalie had to suppressed a sigh at how clichéd his appearance was. But however much a walking stereotype he was, he turned out to be nice man: very precise, quick of mind and likeable.

The interaction with him was pleasant and smooth. He was extremely polite and he had done his homework. Apparently some online research at home had brought him up to speed on the Tampa area and consequently he didn't need her help to find his way around there. About one hour after check-in he already marched past the reception desk with his wife in tow, while he was busy staring down at his iPhone, ready to explore their new surroundings.

Natalie smiled and did some paperwork. Occasionally she would look up and throw a suspicious glance at the man who had been sitting in the lobby for hours and was now busying himself with crossword puzzles. She didn't remember doing his check-in and when she asked her employees neither could they, so she discreetly called security and asked one of the guys to come down to the lobby. Since she didn't want to cause a scene she asked Bill, her head of security, to sit down in the lobby and pretend to read some magazines while he kept an eye on the mystery man.

The stranger was wearing a business suit, but that didn't give away much about him. He could be anything from hotel critic to loony bin fugitive. Her bet was heavily on the former, but it surely wouldn't hurt to be cautious.

The day progressed without any setbacks or bigger upheavals. That was until the evening. She was just about to finish her shift around dinnertime when one enraged Mr. Oppenheimer stormed towards her.

"Didn't I specifically inform you that my wife and I were vegans?!" he thundered in German. He unleashed a tirade of at least twenty minutes on her, lecturing her about her unaccountability and thoughtlessness. It was mostly a monologue because she only got to insert several variations of the words "I'm sorry" in German. Other than that she could only wait until he had finished and then promise to take care of the matter immediately.

When she had just picked up the phone to call Antoine about what had gone wrong with the Oppenheimers food, the stranger from the lobby decided to make his way over to her. She slowly put down the telephone and watched him approach, squaring her back.

In the background Bill was getting up discretely as well, but she motioned him with a flick of her eyes to stay back.

"Ms. York," the stranger knew her name, which increased the chances that his next words would be dreadful, "I couldn't help but overhear the exchange with your guest just there..."

She nodded cautiously. "Yes, an unfortunate misunderstanding that will shortly be sorted. Customer satisfaction is our priority. Is there anything I can do to help you, sir?" she inquired dutifully, although she already had a strange sense of foreboding regarding this conversation.

It came true in the next couple of seconds. "There is. You could give me a tour of your hotel. My name is John Stoppard. I'm a writer with the _New Yorker_ and currently doing a piece on how to best spend your holidays in the Tampa area..."

Internally Natalie let out a loud screech followed by a long 'no' that was very heavy on the vowel sound. For the following half an hour she took care of answering all of Mr. Stoppard's questions and also gave him a tour of the hotel like he had requested. They finished the tour and Natalie booked Mr. Stoppard a night in one of their luxury suites, so he could experience the commodities of the hotel first hand.

Seconds after he was gone, with a satisfied smile on his face she might add, she made the phone call to the kitchen and gave Antoine the heads-up about the Oppenheimers. She couldn't help but ask why he hadn't been informed by Rani about what to do beforehand. Antoine had never even heard of the Oppenheimers, so it turned out that Rani hadn't updated him on the situation in the first place.

Natalie got off the phone with a bad feeling. She blew out a long breath. She would have to confront Rani now. Something was up. It didn't seem like her to forget something major like that. It was a rookie mistake. Was she unhappy with her job? Did she have a problem with her? What was going on?

With those questions in mind, it didn't seem responsible to just end her shift and go home to leave the fate of the hotel in Rani's hands. She'd have to wait until she got here. It was only ten more minutes until she was supposed to be here anyway, so Natalie stayed.

As always Rani arrived a little ahead of time. Natalie left the reception to Sophie's capable hands and motioned her colleague to follow her to the staff room.

"Anything on your mind?" Rani asked almost immediately after the door had closed behind them. Her smile was professional, but cool.

"There has been a little mishap with the Oppenheimer's food. You know the ones I specifically told you about? The vegans from Germany?"

Rani's face remained blank and incomprehensive. "I'm afraid I've never heard that name," she replied with an innocent expression on her face.

Natalie bit her lips, trying very hard not to blow her fuse. They had had a five-minute long conversation about them. She had printed her out one of those emails, goddammit!

"Strange," she said, some of her agitation releasing in the pronunciation of that word. The 's' in it sounded rather sibilant and the rest of it very clipped. "I distinctly remember telling you about it..." Her eyes narrowed as she regarded her colleague. What was Rani playing at?

"At any rate, I wanted to tell you that we have a hotel critic from the _New Yorker _staying with us. He's in the Excelsior Suite. Take extra special care of him, OK?" She stared at her waiting for her nod, which immediately came and was rather enthusiastic.

"We need to look good. Both our jobs are on the line. Not just mine. Yours too," she pointed her index finger at the other woman sternly. Natalie's words were supposed to be an admonition, but also a precaution.

Before she left she made sure to inform as many people as possible about Mr. Stoppard's stay with them. Her trust in Rani had been shaken and there was too much riding on this. She didn't want to take any chances.

On her ride back home she thought about what to do to resolve the 'Rani-situation'. They would have to talk tomorrow. It was inevitable. Obviously she had misjudged the situation when she had thought of Rani's and her work relationship as occasionally critical, but solid. Up until now she didn't have to question her colleagues loyalty. Up until now. Would she be able to take the necessary and somewhat drastic measure if it turned out that they wouldn't be able to work together? Let's spell out what that meant: she would have to fire her. At that thought, she got a nervous feeling in the pit of her stomach, but however nervous she felt, she also knew that she would be able to do what was necessary. She nodded to herself determinedly as she stopped at the next red traffic light coming to the end of that particular thought process.

But how to go about that inevitable talk? She wasn't a particular confrontational person... The ringing of her phone that she was running through the sound system of her car startled her somewhat and she would have almost honked accidentally. Luckily the traffic light was still red. She pressed the accept-call-button on the steering wheel. Soon the car was filled with the deep sound of Stuart's voice.

"So any diplomatic incidents with those Germans yet?" she could hear the smirk in his voice. As usual he wasn't one to start a conversation on the phone like a normal human being. He didn't hold himself up with 'hi' and 'how are you?' He dove right into it and diving right in obviously now meant quizzing her about the Germans staying at the hotel. He sure was curious about that. Who would have thought he'd take such an interest in that?

At any rate the sound of his voice made her quit moping immediately. "Hi, Stu," she smiled, but also shook her head. "You know how regular people start a phone call?"

"Who bloody cares about regular people?"

"I do. Wanna hear it?"

A pause. "No, but I suppose you'll tell me anyway," he eventually said grudgingly.

"Of course I will," she smiled. "So listen: A regular phone call starts with a form of greeting of your choice, then you ask about the other person's day, and when romantically involved with that person you also might want to throw an endearment in the mix. Got it?"

"Wait a minute, I'm just writing all of that down for future reference," irony was permeating every single word of that sentence. "How 'bout I give it a try now? What was that? Aaah, greeting first... OK. Hi, Nat. How was your day, sweetness?" He drawled sarcastically. "I hope that met your approval, ma'am."

"Anything out of your mouth sounds about okay right now," she sighed. She was relishing hearing his voice despite all of those sarcastic words pouring out of those speakers.

"You all right, luv?" His tone changed. There was a hint of preoccupation now. Not too obvious, but she could still hear it.

"Let me think... My second in command is ignoring my orders, we've got a hotel critic sneaking about and the Germans are unhappy. I think that about sums up my workday. Yours?"

"Got up early, worked out, did PR, did a house show, gave Steve a shiner and currently I'm enjoying my well deserved rest, lounging on a hotel bed with a bottle of lager... In terms of being miserable I think you win. My day was actually quite okay," she heard him take a swallow from his bottle. There was an appreciative 'aaah' sound after, which made her smile.

"Yay me! And to think I never really win at anything," she said ironically.

"I've got something that will cheer you right up though, luv," he baited her.

"I'm listening," she told him, already driving down the street to her house.

"McMahon has had an onslaught of charity today. Apparently we did something right for once because we're getting a day off tomorrow. My mate Steve thinks that's a reason to celebrate and I agree, but I'll mostly be celebrating his massive shiner obviously. At any rate, he wants to have a pool party over at his place tomorrow afternoon."

"Great for him," she smirked, putting the car into park in her driveway.

"No, great for us. Because you and I are going to his party too," he announced, telling her instead of asking. It was rather practical. That way he could avoid rejection more easily.

"What?!"

"That's the part where you're supposed to be overjoyed. Apparently you didn't read the manual on how to have a regular conversations with your boyfriend over the phone."

Despite the sarcasm-overload in that particular statement, it made her insanely happy. He had just referred to himself deliberately as her boyfriend for the first time.

"Is this your version of asking nicely?" she smiled.

"You know that there is no version of me asking nicely for anything," he replied.

"True."

"I thought you didn't do parties..."

"I don't do parties when extremely annoying people are involved. We're talking about the mildly annoying variety now, as in my friends. That's a whole different can of beans. Also, you need to see that shiner, luv. It's quite impressive."

"Uh-huh," Natalie said in an unconvinced tone.

"So?"

"Do the words pool party mean I have to wear a swimsuit?" she asked. The thought of parading her very much normal and imperfect body around in front of him and his muscular athlete friends who didn't have an ounce of fat on their bodies, made her nervous and uncomfortable already.

"Well, a space suit would be inappropriate, if you were considering wearing that. Of course swimwear is what one conventionally wears to those things. Is that a problem?"

She sighed. "Not a problem. Just a test of courage."

"Not getting self-conscious now, are we?"

"Easy for you to say. You look like some Greek god, so you don't have to feel nervous about showing off your body."

"Why thank you! How nice of you to notice!" the complacent smirk in his voice was very easy to detect. He was such a bastard sometimes. Then he paused and the next words he said made him instantly seem less bastardly to her. Obviously they cost him quite some effort because they came haltingly. "But Nat?"

"Yeah?"

"You're gorgeous."

"But..."

"No, just accept it for what it is. You are."

"Okay," she sighed. "So, tomorrow at Steve's place. Can you give me his address?"

* * *

So that was it. She put her car into park and switched off the engine. For a second or two she allowed herself to go over what lay before her in her head. She would talk to Rani. What she would say to her and how their talk would go – that was actually still written in the stars. It depended on how Rani would answer to her allegations. In fact it depended on a lot of circumstances and incalculable turns of events she could not foresee at present. Still she dreaded that inevitable talk. She wasn't a very confrontational woman, but she saw the necessity of a few stern words being spoken. At home she had prepared the opening of the conversation in her head. Now this would go down for real.

She got out of her car that was parked in the hotel garage and walked up to the elevator. A turn of her head confirmed Rani's car was parked close to the elevator, so no more avoiding or postponing. She straightened her back and gave her dark-blue blazer a determined tug.

Once upstairs she walked into her office, located on the first floor, a light-flooded, modern room with a huge desk, a computer and barely any personal objects, unless a box of tissues and some hand cream could be labeled personal objects. She deposed of her bag and called Rani on her hotel-cell asking her to come see her right away.

Minutes later she heard a knock at her office door and her second-in-command stepped through the door with a solemn expression on her face.

"Please have a seat," Natalie sat stiffly. Rani nodded at her. For a second the room was completely quiet. As always, when confronted with an unpleasant situation, Natalie's thoughts took refuge in a pleasant thought. Her pleasant thought was British, 6ft7 and thoroughly wouldn't approve of her acting skittish or not confronting the problem right away. She tugged again at her blazer. It was one of her mannerisms.

"How do you deal with having a problem with someone you work with?" Rani's face immediately tensed when Natalie spoke those words, but she remained quiet and listened. After all Natalie was her superior. "Obviously we all have different ways of coping with these kinds of situations. One method, I personally approve of very much is the following: You walk up to the person and tell them: "I have a problem with you out of the following reasons…" It's simple. It's direct and it clears the air straight away. Of course there are also other ways… You don't tell the person and try to cope. Whatever coping means."

"I'm afraid I don't follow," Rani said with an air of superiority.

"Look," Natalie sighed. She got up from her seat behind the desk and rounded it, coming to stand in front of Rani. The woman's face was closed off. She could just as well have crossed her arms over her chest. Natalie leaned back a little against her massive desk. "You and me, we're supposed to work together as a team. In my mind a team consists of two partners. I don't want to hold you back. I don't want to throw stones in your path. That's not who I am. If you are working towards a promotion, you have my support, as long as you try to accomplish that by means of hard work and not by sabotaging my ideas or plans."

"Are you referring to the incident with the Germans?"

Natalie thought for a couple of moments. "Partly. Overall I'm referring to the fact that you and I are obviously having some kind of communication problem which affects our working relationship. My concern is to solve that problem."

"What problem?"

Her colleague was determined to try and make that as hard for her as possible. Natalie pushed herself off the desk. "There are several things I see as problematic. In my mind leading a hotel is a team effort. One part of our team is the kitchen. Our chef. Of course our hotel has a certain standard and quality and we must strive to maintain and ensure that quality, but when someone is doing his job very well, we should not try to put extra pressure on that person." She gave Rani a meaningful glance here. The other woman averted her eyes stubbornly. Maybe she needed to be clearer. "I think that if you make Chef Antoine jump through hoops all the time, instead of complimenting him for his excellent work, we will end up having to look for a new chef eventually."

"You've just said something about trying to maintain and secure the quality of our hotel. I was just trying to do that."

"Okay," Natalie conceded. "Let me address the problem directly. The problem is that in my mind you often don't follow my explicit orders and occasionally even go against them, which is not very productive. Now we either solve that problem or I'll have to take actions."

"What actions?"

"We will have to let you go."

"You are going to fire me?" For the first time since the beginning of their conversation Rani was showing an emotional reaction. It was anger mixed with incredulity, manifesting itself as a frown on her face. Now Natalie saw a lot of frowns in her private life (Remember the Englishman also known as Bad News Barrett?) and consequently she was hardened against them. For a second she actually allowed herself to think of Stuart there. What he would do and how he'd confront the problem. Actually that thought help her a little.

She straightened her back. "Yes, that's what's going to happen. If it is necessary… It won't be necessary, however, if we can work this out. Let's get down to basics, shall we? Just tell me straight out what it is that you want." She clasped her hands in each other and gave the Rani an expectant look.

The other woman hesitated. This conversation was unpleasant. It was of a very straightforward and personal nature, but still remained polite, which was perplexing.

"Please, don't be shy…" Natalie insisted.

Rani licked her lips. At this point of the conversation she didn't have much to lose anymore. "Well, I was working towards that promotion."

"Okay," Natalie replied. "How do you think you will get promoted faster? By working together with me as a team? Or by trying to sabotage me? As I pointed out to you, leading a hotel is a team effort."

"What if I don't agree with your way of leading?" Now Rani's gaze was challenging.

"Then you would have to voice your criticism in a constructive way. But at any rate you would have to tell me if there was something you didn't agree with, not in front of the other employees of course," they had already encountered a situation like that, hence Natalie was mentioning it, "but in a private setting and we would try to find a compromise. My opinion isn't absolute. That's why there is a second-in-command after all."

"I think it would be extremely hard for us to work through all those disagreements. There are too many," Rani announced.

Natalie turned her back to her colleague for a moment. She looked out of the window of her office. Outside the sun was shining on the green park in front of the hotel. In the backdrop there was Tampa Bay. Everything looked peaceful. In here things weren't as peaceful. She needed a second to reassemble. What was to come next would be difficult. It would require a considerable amount of backbone which she luckily had managed to regrow in the last couple of weeks.

"So you don't want to try?"

"No," Rani said stubbornly.

Natalie turned around towards her, her face firm and determined. "You know that that doesn't leave me any choice, right? I'm giving you a two-weeks notice to find something more suitable."

Rani looked dumb-founded, like she hadn't actually expected that much from Natalie even after she had pointed out to her that it would have to eventually come down to this. "Is that all?" she asked sourly and got up to leave.

"I also expect you to get yourself together in those two weeks… Are we clear?"

"Yes," the other woman hissed and left the room.

After the door had closed, let's rather say almost slammed shut behind Rani, Natalie rounded her desk and let herself slump down in her chair. She massaged her temples tiredly, throwing a glance at the clock in the bottom right corner of her computer desktop. 10am and she already felt like it was four in the afternoon. She would have to have a close watch at Rani now. There was a no doubt about it. On top of everything else she would soon be without a second-in-command if she didn't take actions.

A thought occurred to her while she was staring vacantly into the empty space in her office. She picked up the phone and called her old hotel in New York. After having spent about ten minutes listening to some elevator music in the waiting line, a real, actual person picked up the phone. It was her friend Paul.

Before he could ramble through the usual telephonic greeting required of hotel employees she stopped him. "Hey Paul, this is Natalie," she said with a grin on her face.

"Nat!" her friend practically squealed into the phone and made her chuckle.

"Paul, I've just had a crazy idea…" she started.

"You always have, sweetie. What's new about that?"

"You're obviously not behind the reception right now, are you? What are you doing?"

"Keeping Rosalba from housekeeping on her toes…"

"You mean eating chocolates with her?" Natalie smiled.

"Same thing," Paul replied and she could hear his smile over the line and also Rosalba in the background. "Is that Mrs. York?"

"Yes, it's her." "Say hello from me to her."

"Tell her to keep up the good work," Natalie replied. "Paul? Are you ready to hear my crazy idea?"

"Yes," Paul said hesitantly.

"How do you feel about Tampa?"

"It's a nice place, lot's of nice clubs. Awesome weather. Why?"

"Would you like to move here and work with me?" Natalie held her breath after she had asked that question.

For a moment there was silence over the line. It was clear that Paul needed some time to think through her proposal. "Would I like to work with you? What kind of stupid question is that? Of course, Nat!"

"So you wouldn't be opposed if I called Mr. Taylor and asked him whether he could spare you?"

"What makes you think you'll be able to convince him?"

"I'll offer him a substitute. I'll just have to talk to her and see if she agrees." Now that was the hard part. She fully expected Rani to sabotage her like with almost everything she had tried in the last couple of months.

She got off the phone with Paul and went looking for her colleague, soon to be ex-colleague. She found her down at the reception. Their talk went rather swift and in clipped tones. At the end of it Rani surprisingly agreed to Natalie's suggestion, mainly because it would make it look like she was being swapped for another employee instead of being fired, which of course would look better on her CV.

With those preparations already made, Natalie got on her phone again to call her former boss, Mr. Taylor. Their conversation stretched out for over an hour. He was happy hearing from her and her proposal intrigued him, but he got suspicious when she offered to trade in Rani. Of course he wanted to know why she wanted to do that. She explained about Rani's excellent résumé, but also their difficulties working together. It was not conductive keeping anything from him. If he found out later, it would look like she had tricked him into agreeing.

He implied that he would be ready to agree if he was able to make himself a picture of Rani's character. They agreed to set up a conference call in the afternoon for Rani and him to talk. When Natalie ended the call, she only had enough time to take a deep breath, because soon she found three messages on her work-cellphone. She got up from her seat and didn't get a chance to sit down until she climbed in her car in the afternoon.

At least she was able to do that with a content smile on her face, because Mr. Taylor had agreed to work with Rani. So their "hostage exchange" would take place in two weeks time.

* * *

"You have reached your destination," the navigator proclaimed almost smugly. She put the car in park and looked at the house next to her car. It seemed normal, non-threatening. What was awaiting her there should have been normal and non-threatening too, but she was a New Yorker, for crying out loud! In New York social events didn't entail wearing swimwear and spending time poolside, unless you went to the Hamptons of course. But obviously this was a different game. This was madness! This was Tampa.

She put one pale leg out of the car. Before leaving she had covered her whole body in sunscreen. She had chosen the highest level of protection she could find, because she spent her days at the hotel and her nights inside the house. Whenever she went jogging it was very early and she couldn't get a tan there, at best she could get slightly beige.

On the way up to the door she tugged a bit at her clothes which were also unusual for her. At present she was wearing her first ever pair of cut-offs, they did a nice job of covering her bum but apart from that they could hardly be called pants, in addition to that she had on a simple turquoise tank top and underneath that a dark-blue bikini with golden ornaments stitched onto it.

She sounded the bell and the host of the party opened the door soon enough. Stephen's sight managed to reassure her and simultaneously make her feel uneasy at the same time. His arms and legs were inhumanly pale, right now he was wearing shorts and a polo, so much for the reassuring part, but they were also pretty muscular, hence the unease, because she was reminded again that she didn't have the body of an athlete.

"Hey, long time no see! Come on in, lass," he greeted her with a smile, clearly happy that she had turned up.

She held out a cellophane wrapped bowl to him which he took from her with a surprised expression. "I've made you salad. I understand you have a barbecue fired up and ready," she explained.

"Yeah. Oh! Of course. Thanks... Stu's already back out there taking care of stuff," he replied. Despite his size, he had a rather boyish air about him, which made his character endearing. And he wasn't too full of himself. Natalie felt herself relax a tiny fraction.

Of course her attention was also immediately drawn to the purplish bruise around his right eye. She flinched in sympathy when she first noticed it and sucked in the air through her teeth.

"I'm sorry about that..."

"Professional hazard. No need for ya to be sorry. That was all Stuart's doin' an' my own inadvertence," he said rubbing the back of his head sheepishly.

"Yeah, but I feel sorry by extension," she said with an apologetic grin. "Knowing Stuart, I bet the words 'I'm sorry' never even passed his lips."

He laughed. "Seems like ya know him pretty well already."

"I suppose I do," she laughed almost a little embarrassedly. "I mean, he is a good guy... Isn't he?"

Steve smiled and stroked his beard, which was totally not making her want to scream "What?" at him. Not at all.

To her relief he eventually started letting her in on what was so amusing. "Ya know dealing with Stu is a lot like watching a theater play."

She gave him a look that clearly said "huh?" so he elaborated.

"What's goin' on onstage is mostly what everyone sees, but only a few people realize that the backstage area is the place where the craic happens." The word 'craic' got her sidetracked her for a second.

"Erm... Yeah. He's different from what you'd expect him to be at first glance. Hidden depths and all that, right?" Natalie asked gingerly.

"Clever lass," Steve smirked in approval and motioned her to step in through the door. He closed it behind her and turned to her. "Ya know that Stu and I have been mates for almost 10 years now. The bloke's a decent fella. The type ya can call at 2 am in the night when yer car's broken down an' ya need a lift home. Of course he'd work in the odd sarcastic quip an' some mean jokes on yer expense, but ya could rely on him te come through fer ya."

"Really?" she smiled.

"Definitely. He's a decent sort a fella," he tried to reassure her. "An' he's loyal te those close to him." He gave her a pensive look. "I suppose yer part of us buggered few that he calls his inner circle now."

"Erm... Yeah," she smiled. "Is that like the official name of the club? Us buggered few?"

"Yep," he nodded avidly and laughed, turning to march down the corridor. She followed him.

"Yeah, well, talking about Stu, I suppose I should probably go and say 'hello' to him. Anyone else here yet?"

"No, yer the first. I put him in charge of the barbecue. That way he's distracted an' can only insult so many people."

"Clever move. But unfortunately he's rather good at multitasking."

"I thought of that too. That's were ya come in. Ya'd better go out there an' distract him fer everyone's benefit."

"Yay! I'll finally be able to do mankind a service," she joked.

"Good lass!" He held out his fist to her. She stared at it for a couple of seconds, he nudged his head in the direction of his fist, she finally realized he was going for a fist bump and flushed. She touched her much smaller fist to his.

"We seriously need te work on that," he told her.

"Yeah," she grinned. "Probably."

Time to go and look for Stuart. Steve led her through her house, which was pretty similar to Stu's concerning the layout, which wasn't surprising because they lived about a stone's throw away from each other. After he had indicated a glass door to her behind which she could already see the pool, he disappeared in the kitchen to dispose of the salad she had brought him.

Natalie stepped through the sliding glass door hesitantly. The pool was surrounded by something like a sunroom, which was made out of some sort of mosquito net. A very clever idea. She had learned early into her Tampa experience that sun-flies were nasty and pesky little creatures. Outside of the area enclosed by the net she could see the smoke of the barbecue rising. She stepped through another door to get outside and followed a little path down to the backyard.

Just like Stephen had predicted Stuart was waiting there, busy firing up the barbecue and nursing a beer until the first guests arrived. Stuart looked ruggedly handsome the way he stood there with his usual nonchalance. Once again he had gone for understatement with his clothes, sporting a dark blue polo and some nondescript black shorts. He was just about to take another swig from the bottle, but stopped mid-movement when he saw her. He lowered the bottle and looked at her over the rim of his aviator sunglasses, allowing his eyes to trail up her legs slowly.

The way he was checking her out made her nervous. She was momentarily torn between indulging the idea of taking off, which included running across the lawn and jumping into Tampa bay to disappear from sight or behaving like the adult woman she actually was. In the end her mature part won out. She walked up to him quickly. That way he would maybe stop looking at her like that and make her feel less self-conscious.

"Hi," she smiled shyly.

He frowned briefly, then decided to skip the 'hi' in favour of quickly pulling her into a one-armed embrace against his body - he was still holding that bottle after all.

He smelt of smoke and fabric softener and him and it made her smile grow wider as she looked up at him, craning back her head. She reached up and took of his sunglasses wanting to see his eyes. He smirked. Fine wrinkles formed around the corners of his eyes and made the look he cast her seem almost roguish.

"Hello, gorgeous." So she had been wrong about him not wanting to say any words of greeting. She opened her mouth, about to protest that she wasn't gorgeous, but she never got as far as that because he kissed her with a grin on his lips, obviously thinking himself pretty clever for shutting her up this way.

He tasted slightly of beer, no big surprise there, since he had just drank from it, but that didn't make her less enthused about the kiss. It had been nearly two weeks. She had thought about him constantly and now there he was and what was the cherry on top was that he thought she was gorgeous in those ridiculous cut-offs. Couldn't get much better than that. Then of course he ruined it and pinched her in the butt, which made her jump away from him. She let out a tiny squeal of protest and swatted his triceps with gusto.

"Stuart!" she pointed her index finger at him and threw him a dark glance. He smirked, snatched back the sunglasses from her hands and put them on before he busied himself with the barbecue grill again. Stephen joined them only a few moments later

He was grinning and looking between the two of them like a fellow conspirator. "Here," he said and held out a cold bottle of beer to her, "I went out on a limb there, hopin' ya wouldn't be too much into girly stuff."

She took the proffered bottle of beer from him. "What's girly stuff?"

"Anything with a tiny umbrella in it qualifies. Appletinis, Cosmopolitans and the like. You know like from that TV show with those four broads living in New York. But I hear it's not on anymore, innit? Good riddance. They all had ghastly hair and among them probably owned half a billion shoes, not to mention that they always felt the strange compulsion to shag everything in sight. Such brilliant role models for little girls around the world," Stuart drawled with an expression of distaste on his face.

"Amen to that, mate," Stephen toasted him from where he was standing.

Natalie frowned and took a ladylike sip from her bottle as opposed to the manly swigs Stuart and Stephen were taking from theirs. "Am I mistaken or did we just get to hear the Stuart Bennett cliff notes version of _Sex and the City_?"

Steve grinned. Whereas, big surprise there, Stuart's version of a grin was closer to a sneer.

"You've got to admit it sums up the thin plot of the show rather nicely," he told her condescendingly.

Not that she was a big fan of _Sex and the City, _but just like large parts of the female population of this planet she had occasionally gotten stuck on some episodes and from time to time discovered a surprising depth about them. She didn't approve of judgmental attitudes in general and that was why she chose to give Stuart a taste of his own medicine. "Well, how about this? Would you like to hear the Natalie York cliff notes version of wrestling?"

"Yeah, why not? Let's give it a shot," Steve encouraged her and looked between the two of them.

Stuart merely raised an eyebrow at her remark. She was more self-assertive today than he was used to. All things considered it was a pleasant surprise, but it was unexplored territory for both of them. Up until now she had been timid, allowing him only occasional glimpses at a woman who was strong, courageous, quick-witted, but also sensitive. Somewhere along the line he had decided that he liked both versions of her - the shy one, but also the strong one. It was just that he was less experienced in dealing with this more confident version of her.

"Well, go ahead then," he told her, curious to see how it would pan out.

She nodded. "The WWE is a little bit like a carnival with muscles, isn't it? There are the ones being shot out of a cannon, they provide the adrenaline. There are the pretty girls, clowns and fistfighters," she threw both men a pointed glance at the word fistfighters. She assumed that's where they came in.

"What about Cena?" Stuart asked. "How does he figure into that equation?"

"Cena... Let me see. Well, he is the one everyone wants to see because he is the lion tamer. How about that?"

"Yeah, grand. But I was hopin' ya'd say somethin' more humorous," Stephen told her and took a swig from his beer bottle. "A carnival?" He made a face. "Too close to the feckin' truth for my taste. We could have used a bit of cheer-up right about now..."

"Cheer-up?" She watched him with her head inclined a little to the left. "Why cheer-up?"

"Because, Little-Miss-Sunshine, a lot of our friends and colleagues have been let go on short notice just a few days ago," Stuart drawled and made her inevitably look in his direction.

"Oh my God! Couldn't you have told me that, instead of letting me put my foot in it like a big old klutz?" she looked at Stuart accusingly.

"As Steve said, I was hoping it would provide a humorous distraction. Actually you're facial expression right now kind of does."

"So me throwing you murderous glances amuses you?"

"Yes, but if it's any consolation to you, only mildly," he informed her nonchalantly.

She shot him another one of those dark glances before she directed her attention back to Stephen, minus the death glare of course. She seemed to be genuinely distressed by her earlier comments that had now turned out to be so inappropriate. "I'm so sorry. I swear I didn't know. I promise I'm not usually an insensitive cow, just when he doesn't tell me about important stuff like that." She tried throwing Stephen an apologetic smile. At any rate the way she acted made the Irishman laugh, probably because he realized the irony behind the fact that his curmudgeon of a friend was dating a person who could easily be labeled as "nice" and "well-mannered" by anyone's standard. The world was a funny old place.

"Stop apologizin' already. I wasn't even mad to begin with," Steve told her and held out his beer bottle to her as if he was expecting her to clang hers against his. Eventually she did, but rather hesitantly.

Their conversation was interrupted by the doorbell ringing. "That'll be Drew," Stephen announced and hurried to open.

"Who's Drew?" she asked.

"Just one of my closest friends ever since I came over here to the States... Also he got sacked from the job yesterday, so none of those pleasant comments of yours about the WWE," Stuart replied, shooting her a pointed glance before he busied himself with poking at the charcoal of the barbecue for a while.

A tall man with long, dark hair arrived moments later. He had been equipped with a beer bottle as well, probably right before Stephen had let him towards the backyard. She recognized his face. He had been with Stuart the night she first met him.

"Hey," Stuart greeted the newcomer and quite surprisingly also went over to hug him. It was one of those man hugs which consisted of a series of claps on the shoulder. Still it was unusual for Stuart. She supposed when you lost your job, you apparently qualified for one of his hugs. But he had already vastly exceeded his once a year quota by now. Maybe she was a bad influence on him too.

"How are you holding up, mate?"

"Still trying to wrap my head around the news... It's still rather fresh. It needs some time to sink in that I won't be traveling with you lot again for a while..."

Stephen slapped him on the shoulder as a show of silent support. The three men shared a long silence while they drank from their beer. It was only then that Drew actually became aware of her presence.

"Oh, hi! Sorry, I didn't see you there. My name's Drew," there was an unobtrusive Scottish accent on his English. "I'm Stephen's and Stuart's friend. We work... No, we used to work together," a bit of bitterness was seeping into his friendly tone there, but he still held out his hand to her with a polite smile.

She shook his hand. "Natalie York." She refused to point out again, how she had with Steve before, that they had already met. He probably wouldn't remember her anyway.

There seemed to still be some blanks to fill, so Steve took that trouble upon himself. "If yer asking yerself who she is an' whether she's single, don't go there mate. The lass has a rotten taste..."

"Why?" Drew asked while Stuart irritatedly shouted "Oi!" and Natalie more politely inserted an "Excuse me!" into the conversation.

"She's with that one," the Irishman continued unflinchingly and pointed over at Stuart.

"Oooooooohoho!" Drew's expression brightened for the first time ever since he had arrived. "Really? You must be a very brave lass then. How's that going for you, luv?" he asked with a grin.

"Never a dull second," she squared her shoulders, ready to defend her own honor, but also Stuart's, but only to a certain extent. "Very..." she could feel Stuart's eyes on her. "Challenging?" she supplied.

The two men chuckled, obviously finding her assessment of the situation very accurate, whereas Stuart was less amused by her words.

"What pray tell, is challenging about me?"

Surprisingly his friends came to her aid there. She didn't even get the time to answer.

"No, idea. What do ya say, Haggis? Is it his polite an' open nature?" Steve grinned and nudged Drew in the side.

"Naaah, I always reckoned it was his positive and cheerful attitude, mate," Drew replied with a grin.

"No," Stuart stared at them with a malicious grin. "I reckon it's the fact that I'd able to kick both your pathetic arses this week into Sunday if I chose to."

"Hey! You hear that Steve? Just like old times. All talk no substance..."

"Shut up, Galloway. Or my knuckles are going to explore the substance of your pretty-boy face," Stuart smirked and pointed at his own nose. "Fancy having one of these?"

"No one fancies havin' a beak like yers..." Steve quipped, while Natalie was standing between them, looking between the three like the spectator of a tennis match, only that with three parties involved it was much more difficult to follow all those insults being thrown around.

"Says the lad with the vampire skin and the aesthetically pleasing orange hair," Stuart quipped. "I bet you're going to be the only one thankful when your hair's turning grey at some point..."

It was then that Natalie had finally heard enough. They were behaving like a bunch of little boys. Next thing you'd know they'd be rolling around on the lawn fighting. Time to raise the intellectual bar a bit there.

"Gentlemen," Natalie decided to speak up, "I'm sure there are other ways of expressing your very heterosexual affection for each other than by verbally lashing out. My comment was not meant to encourage a verbal dismantling of Stuart's qualities... It was merely an attempt at humor."

Her words made the two men just stare at her while Stuart was already used to her way of expressing herself. "Very poor humor, I might add," he told her.

"Yes, and I'm sorry for that," she smiled at him. "I only meant to tease you a little. Apparently that backfired. Of course the art of ironic self-effacement is a very rare and noble quality and I thought you possessed it. Apparently I overestimated you. My apologies."

Drew came out of his daze first. He laughed and pointed his finger at her. "Now I remember you! You're that girl from the hotel! The one that talked back to him without ever stopping to be polite. It was hilarious... He looked like he was about to strain a muscle to keep his head from exploding."

"I'm glad our interaction found your approval," Stuart replied in her place.

"Well, obviously it found yours too," Natalie replied. "Or else we wouldn't be having this conversation right now."

"Perhaps it was a temporary lapse of judgment," he smirked.

"And there I was hoping it was slightly more than just temporary," she smiled at him.

"No, worries, hotel girl. I've found our interactions vastly improved since we first met."

"How so?" she asked curiously, although she had a feeling she shouldn't have.

"You talk less," Stuart told her, which made the other two guys chuckle.

"And you talk more, hence the challenging nature of our relationship," she told him with a mischievous sparkle in her eyes. She was proud of herself for not allowing him to cut her down to size with his words.

"Should we leave ya two alone?" Steve interjected. His words made both Stuart and Natalie stare at him in surprise, when they only had had eyes for each other just moments earlier.

"Why?" Natalie inquired.

"Cause yer either about to verbally rip each other a new one or yer jus' flirtin' like there's no tomorrow," the Irishman told her and threw in a mischievous wink at the end of the statement.

"Yeah, which one is it by the way? We're dying to know," Drew asked with a smirk before he took another swig from his bottle.

"Not sure..." she smiled.

"Depends. Perhaps a little bit of both," Stuart replied, his mouth set in a crooked smile that was solely directed at Natalie.


	12. Finishing Moves

**Author's note**: _So now you get fluffiness with a hint of trouble. I know that I'm a terrible tease. Yes, definitely aware of that, but I swear I'll deliver soon._

_Thank-you to UntilNeverDawns for her beta-awesomeness and all of you guys for reading, commenting and favouriting. (Hi, LivHardy! Thank you so much, dear.)_

_Tammy: Oh, he's definitely rubbing off on her, just not in that one, very special way yet. (insert evil cackle here) On a more serious note: I just wanted to have her re-grow her backbone before that happened, you know. She needs it to handle Stuart properly. _

_maketimetotime: What can I say? Thank you? I'm really flattered by your extremely kind words. I'm enjoying myself so much writing this story (though at this point I'm mostly editing stuff) and it's fantastic that people have fun reading it too. So everybody wins? Thank you. A hug._

* * *

Soon more of Stephen's friends arrived, a mixture of colleagues from wrestling and some neighbors. The atmosphere was laid back, the barbecue was delicious and the conversation pleasant.

A peroxide blonde guy named Nick was the first to take of his shirt and suggest jumping into the pool. Without any spite Natalie took it upon herself to point out to him that freshly bleached hair could potentially react badly with chlorine water, but the guy only laughed her comment off and said that he wouldn't mind green hair. Naturally, with this amount of crazy, he had to be one of Stuart's wrestler colleagues.

Since Nick had broken the ice, more people were starting to strip down to their swimwear. Some of them keeping on their shorts or shirts while others chose to completely reveal the bathing suits, bikinis or swimming trunks they were wearing underneath. Even the pale British girl named Saraya Natalie had been chatting with for the last twenty minutes, was now wearing a bikini, despite the fact that she had an equally vampiresque complexion as Steve.

"Let's sit by the pool for a bit," the Brit suggested and since their conversation about traveling and which countries they had already been to respectively, had been quite pleasant, Natalie chose to play along. "You'd better take off your tank and your shorts though, the guys have a tendency of tossing people in. At least that happened a lot the last time I was here."

Natalie arched her left eyebrow, but did as she was told.

"I know, right?" Saraya commented Natalie's facial expression with a smile on her lips. "I swear most of them are thirteen going on thirty. And here I was hoping older men were more mature..."

Natalie snorted. "They might grow older, but they never grow up."

True to her words, just then a little argument broke loose on the other side of the pool. As if those men didn't do enough fighting on the job.

While floating around on the water surface on an inflatable mattress, much reminiscent of Hoffman in _The Graduate_, Nick had managed to enrage Stephen, Drew and Stuart with some ill-chosen comments about soccer. He had apparently said it was a boring waste of time compared to football or hockey, or something equally blasphemous. For a while the exchange of half-serious threats on both sides seemed to suffice to settle the argument, until, in the face of Nick's sheer insolence, the three friends chose to dive in and let the air out of the blonde's little, until now, unsinkable fortress. After the inflatable mattress had sunken like the Titanic impaled on an iceberg, a large, human-shaped shadow moved quickly towards Natalie and Saraya underneath the water.

Natalie let out a little high-pitched sound of surprise when Stuart emerged from the pool only inches from her and splashed her and Saraya with water when he broke the surface.

He grinned, apparently congratulating himself on a job well done, as his hand gently closed around her ankle and gave it a little tug.

"No!" she shook her head determinedly.

"Yes!" he grinned wickedly.

He raised himself to his full height. The water reached up to his ribcage. He put his wet and cold forearms on her thighs. She shivered as cold drops of water ran down her calves that had been heated up by the sunlight.

"I'll only ask nicely once more," he said, his voice low and intimate while his gaze bored into her. It made her aware of a lot of things at once, for example of how he was half naked and his body was wet and cold, but strangely somehow warm at the same time. Then there were also his hands that had somehow moved upwards from her knees over her outer thighs and were now resting left and right on her hips. He pressed his scruffy chin against her knees and made her wish she could feel his lips on her skin.

He had never touched her like that before, because there had always been a line they had chosen not to cross so far, but perhaps it was time to move forward. Her eyes sparkled and she bit her bottom lip, blushing a little and down-casting her eyes. When she looked back up, she met his gaze directly. The color of his irises was for once easily to determine. The light reflected from the water let them seem green. Droplets of water were trailing down his chest.

For a moment she fantasized about laying her arms around his neck and letting him drag her into the water while he gave her a long and passionate kiss. But they couldn't do that. There were people around and she wasn't comfortable enough with the situation not to care.

The PG-13 version of her getting into the pool was more boring of course. She nudged him with her foot. "All right. Move aside. I'm going to get in."

She pushed herself off the edge and felt the coolness of the water prickle over her heated up skin when she first dove under. For a second she remained underneath the surface and re-emerged smoothing back her long hair. While the situation might have appeared fairly PG-13 to her when she had still been outside the pool, it certainly turned out to be less harmless now. There he was, much closer and able to touch her, which he did almost immediately. He pulled her back against his body, his hands on her naked midriff. It was a slightly territorial move, as if he wanted to broadcast the information to the other guys that she was taken and his. It made her grin. But now what? Did he seriously think she could continue her conversation with Saraya like that? With his muscular chest pressing against her back and the knowledge that further down other parts of him were pressing up against her as well, she wouldn't be able to get out one single, coherent sentence.

Those worries were shortly after forgotten because soon Nick appeared again, filled with an unquenchable thirst for revenge. He had freed himself from Steve and Drew. Actually they had gotten bored and gone to get themselves some fresh bottles of beer and no longer paid attention to him. Now that the numbers were in his favor, he felt free to take his revenge. Attacking from behind was the ideal scenario for that, so he jumped at the chance that presented itself to him.

Stuart instantly let go of her when he was dragged under water. Nick was dunking the much larger man under with a grin, knowing that he had only succeeded in doing so because of the element of surprise. A quick change of strategy was in order. He needed to get the Brit were it hurt, so he started advancing on his girlfriend. Just as Nick's hand reached out to touch her, Stuart appeared from the water again, dragging her attacker away with an arm across his chest. "I'd strongly advice you to keep your hands off her, Nemeth!" he snarled.

In order to further emphasize his point, he unceremoniously dunked the blonde's head under water in revenge. Nick emerged seconds later from the pool, spewing water like a decorative Neptune statue on a fountain.

"Come on, Nemeth. Let's give it another go. Don't you wanna get some first hand experience with water boarding?" Stuart taunted.

"Afraid I'd steal you girlfriend?"

Stuart scoffed. "Hardly. She's not into bleach blonde ponces who drool over Britney Spears. She's got more class than that."

"Why don't you ask your lady friend about that?" Nick managed to sneak a glance around Stuart at Natalie and grinned at her. "Hey baby! The name's Nick."

Natalie smiled. "We've already been introduced by Steve."

"High time we got to know each other a little better. Don't cha think?" Nick suggested, flashing her his perfect teeth. Of course he wasn't serious about flirting with her, he just wanted to get under Stuart's skin a little. Natalie was aware of that. Nick was aware of that. And probably so was Saraya who was giggling softly as she followed their interaction. Unfortunately Stuart wasn't. It looked like he was contemplating knocking Nick's perfect set of teeth out, judging by the scowl on his face.

"Sorry, as much as I'd love to do that, we must resign ourselves to the fact that there is always going to be something standing between us," she shrugged her shoulders looking at Stuart pointedly who was indeed bodily standing between them.

"Tragic," Nick said and covered his heart with his hands.

Natalie smiled and looked at Stuart who now turned around towards her with his arms crossed over his chest. His facial expression was slightly leaning towards disapproving. Apparently he was very possessive when it came to her. That realization made her smile inevitably.

"Don't you mean someone, luv?" Stuart drawled.

"No, I really meant something. As in me being a pacifist and generally disapproving of torture and the violation of the human rights. I just want to save him, that's all," she explained confidently.

"See? Chicks dick me," Nick grinned triumphantly.

"Correction Nemeth, they pity you," the Brit quipped back.

For a second he turned his head to glare at Nick, which Natalie used to give the other man the thumbs up sign behind his back. As Nick's grin broadened the Brit whipped back around to her with a scowl. "What are you doing? You're supposed to tell him to bugger the hell off," he said, his two eyes narrowing to slits.

"Is that really necessary?" she smirked. "I hope you do know that I only belong to you, my hero," she held the back or her hand against her forehead in a dramatic pose.

"Cut the my hero crap! Apart from that? Damn right you do, babe," Stuart growled and scooped up Natalie bridal style.

She giggled and looked over his shoulder at Nick with a grin. "Sorry, I'm kind of in the middle of something. Guess you will have to find someone else to get to know a little better."

"Oh, shoot! And there I was getting my hopes up," the blonde man replied and winked at her, already retreating to the other side of the pool.

Only now the fact that Stuart's arms were wrapped around her filtered fully into Natalie's consciousness. The last time she had been carried like that had been... never, she concluded. It felt nice, but at the same time unusual and a little disconcerting, because she was completely at his mercy now and she didn't like relinquishing the control of her life at any point of it. It wasn't that she didn't trust him, she did. She just preferred to stand on her own two feet.

They stared at each other for a moment or two. Everything else seemed to cease existing and suddenly was inconsequential. Her heart was beating hard and fast inside her chest and she was breathing quickly. She touched his right bicep. She could feel his toned stomach against her outer thigh rising and falling as he too drew some deep and quick breaths. She leaned closer to him. "That was fun, but would you please put me down now?"

Again he regarded her face, checking it for signs of fright or discomfort. At best she seemed a little nervous. He put her down.

"Was that a wrestling move just there?" she asked, now standing on her own two feet again. The water nearly reached up to her collarbone.

He grinned. "What? Dunking Nemeth under? Nah, old school. Like back when me and my mates were around ten and went swimming... We always tried to drown each other. Luckily we never quite succeeded, but it was good old-fashioned fun."

She noticed how he was visibly relaxed and smiling, which was a nice change. It also helped her ease into the whole swimwear situation. Seeing him up close in so few clothes certainly took some getting used to.

"So," he clapped his hands together, startling her out of her reverie during which she had tried to hypnotize his pecs. "Up for a little lesson in wrestling? I reckon it's safe enough in here." His eyes were sparkling excitedly, so it was probably not a good idea to decline. Not if she didn't want to ruin one of his extremely rare exuberant moods.

"Why not?"

"We could practice a few holds," he suggested and waggled his eyebrows at her.

"Sounds like another excuse to get your hands on me," she shot back.

"Please, do I still need an excuse for that? I thought I didn't." The expression in his eyes was positively devilish.

"How about you show me your finisher?" she suggested casually and pretended to inspect her nails.

"Finisher? Now where did that come from? Since when are you familiar with any wrestling lingo, eh? You haven't started watching the show, have you, hotel girl?" He took a step closer and lowered his face so it was on level with hers. It was as if he actually expected her to betray herself with a slip up of her facial expression. "Now that would actually be scandalous."

She shrugged her shoulders nonchalantly. "What if I have?"

"Allow me to call your bluff. If you know the name of my finisher, I might just teach it to you."

"Really? You're the best boyfriend in the world! I'm so excited!" she gushed ironically, taking care to make her voice sound extra girly and over the top.

"Careful!" He held his index finger under her nose and smirked.

"Or what? You'll give me a taste of that Bull Hammer Elbow?" she smirked.

"You know what, sweetheart? I'm actually quite impressed with you..."

"How impressed?" Her smirk had acquired a sly quality now. "Are you actually going to dispense a wrestling lesson now, oh, wise-one?"

She might have taken it a bit too far with her teasing there, because he actually laughed then. An evil laugh, like typically done on top of mountains with a lightening storms in the background for added dramatics.

Without a warning he grabbed her and hoisted her up on his shoulders, which elicited lot of screams and squeals of protest from her. Half the people on the party were now looking their way. "Put me down, you brute!" Natalie screeched. "Everyone is watching us!"

If anything her screams of protest actually spurred him on. "Let them watch. I don't care. Word of advice: Try to curl up before you break the surface," he told her calmly.

"Do whaaaaa-aaaaaaat?!" she screamed before she landed in the water with a loud splash.

Her head resurfaced again a couple of seconds later. She smoothed back her hair from her face and threw him a death glare, while she readjusted her bikini under water. Since she kept only glaring and not actually started shouting at him, people quickly lost interest in them.

"Come on," he said. "Stop looking at me like I've just tried to kill you. It's not that bad." There was a cocky, complacent grin on his face she didn't particularly like.

"You have," she grumbled.

"Oh, don't be like that. It was all just good, innocent fun, right?"

"No."

He swam over to her and stopped a couple of inches from her, his face level with hers. She noticed how his fingertips were already pruning when he reached out and smoothed a strand of hair back from her face by tucking it behind her ear. The gesture had something endearing and intimate to it and against her better judgment she had to smile. She quickly fought down that smile and tried to put a sullen look on her face.

"Come on. Don't be cross with me, sweetness," he said keeping his voice low, so only she could hear him.

"I'm not really cross. And what was that move anyway?"

"Wasteland."

"Another one of your finishers?"

"Yes."

"Whatever happened to don't try this at home, at school or anywhere?"

"I'm a pro, darling. I'm completely qualified to do this," he told her arrogantly.

"Yeah. Sure," she scoffed, still not appeased.

"Do you want me to make it up to you?" he sighed.

She gave him a look. "What do you think?"

"It was heavily implied by your charming death glare."

"Bingo," she smiled, which made him sigh again.

"How?"

"Now where would the fun be if I told you?" she teased, which made him smirk.

"How about that?" he asked and closed the distance between them. Under water his hands settled on her hips and above the surface his lips kissed hers gently. Inevitably her stiff posture relaxed a little. Her hands came to rest on his chest and made him think of all sort of X-rated things like deepening the kiss and ripping of that sodding bikini of hers. Before the kiss could grow into something less innocent however, he pulled back. They were still in public after all.

The sun slowly set on Tampa Bay and bathed everything in a pleasant orange glow. The world seemed all right. She would have said perfect, had she not been so jaded. In her experience good things never lasted. So occasionally her happiness mixed with melancholia. That melancholia rarely showed. Just when she felt unobserved, she would sometimes stare off into the distance, wondering what it would be that would ruin things eventually.

After a while the water started feeling cold. They got out and with the warm sunlight gone; she didn't feel like hanging around in her wet bikini. Stephen was kind enough to provide them with towels and indicated to them his bathroom where they could get changed. Of course one after the other, at least that was Natalie's idea of the scenario. Gratefully she slung the proffered white and rather fluffy towel around her body and let Stuart lead the way. Since he was Stephen's friend and they were practically neighbors, he knew his way around the house pretty well.

"The bathroom, milady," he held the door open to her and indicated the room as if telling her it was the bathroom hadn't been enough.

She raised an eyebrow at the redundant information and stepped inside. Behind her the door closed and she turned around to lock it only to almost come face to chest with Stuart, because, honestly, thanks to the height difference she reached at best to his collarbone. His hair was still wet and slicked back, the towel Steve had handed him slung around his hips.

He unnecessarily curled his index finger at her, beckoning her to come closer, the gesture completely superfluous because everything about his facial expression said 'come to me', particularly his eyes. They soon put her under a spell and she took a step closer. He slowly reached behind himself and locked the door.

She exhaled, trying to gather enough courage for what was about to happen. It wasn't like she was unfazed by it all. She was aroused and extremely nervous. Her mind was racing, trying in vain to guess his next move.

His hand reached out and slowly but determinedly pulled off her towel. She gasped. It fell to her feet and instantly she felt cold. She didn't make an attempt to cover herself, but normally it would have been her first impulse, especially when he let his eyes roam over her figure completely unabashedly.

He reached out his hand. His fingertips connected with her skin, just a little right of her navel. She sucked in a breath as his fingertips ghosted over her skin. He smiled and his hand came to rest on her hipbone. The warmth of his palm was pleasant against her cool skin. Her mouth fell open slightly. And she could tell he noticed because his eyes were on her face.

Her heart was pounding inside her chest as she reached out her trembling hand to pull at the towel around his hips. For a moment she accidentally grabbed the waistband of his swimming trunks. Her knuckles brushed against his skin while the rest of her hand felt cold and wet fabric. _Temptation, temptation, temptation_. Because of her inadvertence her mind reeled out of control and started imagining scenarios in which she pulled those pants down. Her fingers briefly twitched against his skin. He sucked in a sharp breath. Eventually she let go of that waistband and grabbed the terry cloth material of the towel instead. It came off easily.

They stared at each other for a moment there. She took a step closer. She knew if she kissed him now, it would be over. Well, it sounded drastic, but the sexual tension between had built up to a point where it was either resolved or both of them would have to resort to extremely unpleasant and long ice-cold showers. And right now she was very much in favor of that tension being resolved. It was almost unbearable.

"Stop thinking all those rubbish thoughts in your head and finally start doing what it is you want to do," he told her in his ever so pleasantly polite way, which only made her smile now, because it had become familiar and something that endeared him to her.

She inclined her head to the right a little, biting her bottom lip briefly before she replied. "They weren't rubbish." Her index finger trailed down the invisible line between his pectoral muscles.

"Sure they were." His other hand came to rest on her opposite hipbone. She was wearing side-tie bikini bottoms and he started toying with the string casually. All it took was one determined tug. The same went for the halter top that was tied at the back of her neck.

His thoughts seemed to have wandered in the same direction as well, because he spun her around pulled her against him. She was just about to register the feeling of the wet and cold fabric of his swimming trunks against her back, when his mouth pressed against the spot right where her neck met her shoulders. He slowly opened it and she leaned back further into his body. His kiss was hot and wet against her cool skin and his hands were squeezing her flesh possessively. She covered them with her own as they wandered up her thighs.

His breathing had accelerated now just like hers. She could feel his exhales on her skin that was still wet from his kisses. She gently wiggled against him unthinkingly. It was just as direct reaction to how good it felt what he was doing. Inevitably she could feel that this aroused him just as much as it aroused her.

She turned around abruptly, surprising him momentarily by taking the initiative. It made him smile, because for once that confident person she had undoubtedly been prior to her divorce shone through. Particularly when she positioned her hand on his chest and gently pushed him back against the door. He let her do it with an amused smirk on his face. That smug expression was gone when she pulled his head down towards her and kissed him hard.

She hummed against his mouth when he dipped her back slightly. At this rate they would soon end up being horizontal on Stephen's bathroom rug and desecrate it forever. She would never be able to look the Irishman in the eyes after that. But honesty who cared about that right now?

He was nipping at her collarbone and his mouth was about to wander further down. While he was doing that, he was shooting her some smug and rather sexy looks that seemed to say 'Look at what I'm doing. Are you enjoying yourself?' Yes, she was and probably also thanks to that way his eyes always sought out hers.

A loud knock. At first neither of them reacted. A louder more booming knock. Stuart sighed and sent a glance skyward. More knocking. He brought both of them into a more upright position again.

"Bugger off!" Stuart snarled.

"Oiiii! Ya won't feckin' shag like bunnies in me bathroom, so get yer arses outta there!"

Stuart sighed in defeat and let his head fall back against the door. His hands were still on her shoulders. He had been trying to unravel the knot at the back of her neck. Perhaps in hindsight they were lucky he hadn't gotten as far as a few clumsy and uncoordinated tugs at it.

She realized she wanted something better for them than just a quick screw in a friend's bathroom. It sounded cheap even as she thought it. And everything that had led up to this moment wasn't cheap. What they had felt like something real, like something that was serious.

She touched his face and he looked at her with something akin to a scowl, which made her laugh at him, because she was the last person he should be scowling at. She hadn't ruined the fun; in fact what she was to suggest was probably going to make Stephen's interruption appear less pesky and untimely.

"So how about you get changed somewhere else and we head over to my place then?" Her voice was smooth and low when she said those words, a hint of a smile tugging at her lips. "There will be no Stephens there and no interruptions... Doesn't sound too bad if you ask me."

He quirked his left eyebrow. He was positively flummoxed by her words and even more so by her confidence. Was that her? The real her?

"What?" she asked him, still smiling.

"Nothing. Sounds brilliant," he replied. He probably should have told her that he thought that newfound confidence of hers pretty sexy, but maybe it had been just a fluke, a one-time thing that wouldn't happen again.

"So why aren't you moving yet?"

"Well, indeed. Why aren't I moving, eh?" he looked down himself and she followed his gaze. When she realized his predicament, her smile turned into a smirk.

She picked up the towel from the floor and handed it to him with an impish grin on her face. "You should be fine if you wrap yourself loosely in this. Maybe it's gonna look like a drape. A rather suspicious looking drape..."

"Are you enjoying yourself on my expense now?" he asked, despite taking the towel from her hands with an energetic tug and wrapping it around his hips.

"Maybe a little," she replied, actually accompanying her words with the hand gesture of her thumb and her index finger almost touching.

"What is underneath that towel is decidedly not little," he drawled and she quite predictably grimaced. He continued before she could comment. "At any rate we'll see who will have the last laugh here. You know you're going to pay for this later..."

Now normally she would have probably blushed and giggled, but this time she held his gaze and smiled, which made everything infinitely worse, because it was a massive turn-on. "I'm counting on it," the evil temptress that his girlfriend was turning out to be told him. Her front teeth briefly grazed her bottom lip that was still red from kissing.

"Bugger!" he swore under his breath. He unlocked the door and propelled himself outside where he instantly was welcomed by an over six-foot-tall Irishman who had his arms crossed over his chest. He didn't look amused. Then again neither was Stuart.

"Thanks for screwing things up for me in there," he snarled.

"Just didn't feel like feckin' buyin' meself another one those bath mat thingies," Stephen shrugged. "Besides the lass deserves better an' ya know that."

Of course he knew. It was part of why he was so bad tempered. He had tried being the considerate boyfriend. No, scratch that! He had wanted to be the considerate boyfriend, though usually the words considerate and he didn't appear together in a sentence. But like a flower, she was slowly opening to him further and further each day and the more he learned about her, the more fascinated he was by her. He didn't want to screw this up.

Still growling and mumbling foul remarks under his breath, he disappeared in the guest bathroom to change. He barely registered what he was doing, because his thoughts were still with her. It hadn't been easy for him going at this relationship with the glacial pace they had picked and which had been necessitated by prior events in her life. But he was a man of a certain age, clearly not quite so immature any more. From a certain point in life onwards relationships stopped being that mystical splendid thing you lost your head over. They either worked out or they didn't. Thanks to her though, he had come to re-evaluate that standpoint. He had also come to re-evaluate his maturity. He was bloody infatuated with her. He smiled when he tugged his polo shirt over his head, now fully vested.

He traced her down poolside chatting with Saraya, Drew and Stephen. Before he approached her, he took a moment to watch her from afar. Her hair was slightly wavy now, it must have dried somewhere between getting out of the pool and what they had done inside Steve's bathroom. He smirked to himself. He had her sight, her smell and the taste of her skin firmly imprinted into his memory now.

Although it was still a comparatively warm summer night, she had covered herself up with a simple loose fitting grey shrug. From behind you could only see her somewhat tanned legs sticking out of it and he momentarily indulged the idea that she was only wearing that, but then quickly let that thought drop because it meant that his friends would have gotten a full frontal and he was not up for sharing, especially since he was yet to see her naked himself.

He silently made his way past the other party guests. The horde was thinning now and came to stand next to her. He didn't announce his presence, didn't touch her. He just stopped walking next to her. She shot him a hooded sidelong glance underneath her long lashes and when he looked at her profile, there was the ghost of a smile tugging at the left corner of her mouth.

She casually clasped his hand mid sentence, which made him take a step closer to her and smirk. That smirk assumed bigger proportions when she started getting apologetic about having to leave and concocted some excuses why he had to accompany her.

Judging by the grins on Stephen's, Drew's and Saraya's faces, she shouldn't have bothered with that. They seemed to know what was up too. She could have just spared herself the trouble and said: "Stuart and I are going to head over to my place to have sex." Now that would have been a real party stopper. At least it would have been what he had said.

He remained quiet as they walked outside to their cars. His was blocked by another one parking behind his, so they took hers.

The drive to her place was short and also quiet; somewhere along the way his hand had found his way to her knee. The effect was greater than usually because she was wearing cut-offs. He didn't dare move his hand upwards because he could already see she was somewhat flushed and breathy because of that simple touch. Inevitably that had him thinking about later. If she was so hypersensitive even when it came to innocent little touches like that, what would happen once things progressed to the next level?

His thoughts were derailed because she put the car into park. The smile that had been on her face ever since the party had disappeared. She was staring outside, at the car parked in her driveway. Her eyes traveled from the car to the house. He followed her gaze. What he saw enraged him beyond belief, it made his blood boil instantly. It was the proverbial bucket of ice water emptied over his head. There, comfortably sitting on her front steps was Tony, her ex-husband. Impulsively Stuart's hand flew to the door handle, but she was quicker than him and locked the door from the inside.

"No," she told him sternly.

"Natalie!" He didn't bother hiding his irritation from her. "Be a love and have the bloody decency to bloody let me out of your fucking car!"

"No!" her voice was firmer this time around, despite him nearly shouting at her. "You're not going out there."

His face was filled with incomprehension, so she chose to explain. "If anyone's going out there, it's going to be me. If you go, you will end up doing something incredibly stupid."

Something stupid? What on earth did she mean? She was kind enough to elaborate on that only seconds later.

"I'm just trying to protect you."

He let out a derisive laugh. "You?" He got a little in her face there, but that didn't scare her. She didn't even flinch. "Want to protect me?" He pointed at his own chest incredulously. "Have you looked in the mirror lately? Sorry to break it to you, darling, but you're a half pint. I'm 6ft 7, on the other hand and weigh 256lbs."

"You're size and your weight won't make you more reasonable," she told him without any spite. Actually she smiled at him sadly and touched his cheek. It took some of the fight out of him. "Let me handle this," she implored again.

He sighed. "Are you sure?"

She held his gaze for a second, and then finally nodded.

"I'm sure."

"I swear if he even looks at you funny..."

"Stu, please, get yourself together. You're not helping."

"So you really think you have to do that on your own."

"I know I have to do that on my own."

"Why?"

"Cause he's my responsibility, my past. My stupid mistake I have to take care of," she tried to reason with him. In the end her words didn't seem enough. She grabbed his hand and looked at his face with a pleading expression. "Don't you at least sort of understand that?"

He did. He also understood her need to take care of her own mistakes. He had made enough in the past to be aware what that felt like. "Well, go on then," he said eventually. "But just so you know," he pointed his index finger at her, "If anything goes wrong, I'll still beat that little piece of shit into a bloody pulp." Having said that, he crossed his arms over his chest. He was nonplussed with the entirety of the situation and especially with the fact that he would have to sit this one out in the car like a bloody dog that's waiting for its mistress.

His eyes followed her every move as she walked up to Tony who was still sitting on the front steps. He gave that knobhead a wave of his hand then and pointed his index finger and middle finger at his own eyes and then at him, as if to say 'I'm watching you, mate. One wrong move...'

One wrong move indeed. If he as much as touched her, he'd make everything from way back before the PG-13 area of the WWE look like a kiddy's birthday and quite definitely there wouldn't be any fake blows. His hands balled to fists and he smirked evilly.

In the meantime Natalie had started talking to that pathetic wanker, doubtlessly asking him what on earth he wanted in the middle of the night in front of her house. He liked her body language; the fact that it was so stiff and her arms were crossed over her chest.

Then that prick produced a bouquet of flowers, which was exaggeratedly big like way, way out of proportion big, like he was trying to make up for something he was lacking in another department. Stuart scoffed and watched incredulously as Tony held out the bouquet to Natalie. She said something; the prick shook his head sadly and placed the flowers down on the veranda again. Next that bleeding tosser tried to touch her, but Natalie flinched back. They started having a heated conversation and Stuart was about to get out of the car.

The pathetic wanker said something to Natalie, which seemed to piss her off royally, because it made her eyes sparkle and her chest heave. When that fool reached out to touch her again, she hit him with a right hook. Bam! Completely out of the blue. Just like that. Stuart was torn between anger, utter admiration and worry for her. She wasn't used to hitting other people in the face. She could have hurt her hand; especially of she made that girly fist again with the thumb on the inside.

He got out of the car despite his promise. But as of right now he had no intention to break it. Surprisingly he no longer felt the compulsion to bash the pathetic sod's head in. He just wanted to make sure Natalie was all right.

He was by her side in an instant, but she barely noticed him, because she was still trembling with rage, whereas her victim was clutching the railing of the veranda and rubbing his jaw. It was a stare off and someone needed to intervene before this turned into yelled insults on the front porch, which would surely lead to some nosy neighbor calling the coppers. Someone needed to be reasonable and take action. Strangely enough he supposed that was where he came in.

"How about you head back home now?" he suggested to Tony in his politest sneering voice.

"But she..."

"Just hit you in the jaw with a right hook. Clearly nothing says 'I love you' like that, right, mate?" Stuart replied, not even looking at Tony any more as he inspected Natalie's hand carefully. Her knuckles looked red. This would hurt like a bitch once the adrenaline had left her system.

"That won't be the last you've heard of me," Tony threatened as he got into his car and sped off like a dog with his tail between his legs.

"What a pathetic and useless excuse of human being!" Stuart muttered through clenched teeth as she walked Natalie up to her front door. She was clutching onto him for dear life and her face was white as linen.


	13. Leonidas and His Queen

**Author's note: **_Here we go. It's Sunday, so that means high time for an update. Thank you to my partner in crime UntilNeverDawns for the support and all that betaing. You're a champ! And so are all of you reading, following and favoriting. I really appreciate it. Thank you! _

_Tammy: "Death Wish" is spot on. That guy's really a major pest. Surprisingly ;-) Stuart IS thinking about hunting him down..._

_mox9: Thank you so much! That comment about the female characters in my story really made my day. That's exactly how I want them to come across sassy and not sappy. Writing Natalie sometimes means I have to go beyond my comfort zone, because she is so fragile at times. Especially at the beginning of this story._

_maketimetotime: Thank you, dear! Kill the mood? Well, even Tony can't prevent the inevitable from happening, can he?_

_LivHardy: A book? Oh heavens, you flatter me. It probably could be when it comes to the length of this story. Poor UntilNeverDawns. I think we're somewhere in the middle here. Still a lot of ground to cover and I'm especially nervous about this chapter..._

* * *

"I just hit Tony," she said, apparently only now realizing what she had done.

"Yeah, that you did, darling," he acknowledged and reached inside her handbag. Without hesitating he started to root around in it for her keys. Having found them, he quickly unlocked the door and led her inside. He tugged at the handbag strap on her shoulder and it slipped off. The bag hit the ground with a thud, but she didn't pay any attention to it. Since he hadn't heard the sound of anything breaking, he didn't bother with it either. She was way more important than that now.

The way she was now clutching her hand to her chest told him that she had already started feeling the after effects of her wanting to channel her inner Mike Tyson. He switched on the lights inside the kitchen and gestured for her to lean against the counter while he looked around the fridge for something to put on her already swollen and red knuckles. She owned no cooling pack, but had some deep-frosted peas, so he took those instead, wrapped the bag in a kitchen towel and pressed it gently against the back of her hand.

"There you go, Rocky," he smiled. His voice was gentler now, softer. It transported some of the affection he felt towards her. And for a brief moment what he had said seemed to actually have registered with her because she allowed herself a fleeting smile of her own.

"Who's the bare-knuckled fighter of us two now, huh?" He grinned and pulled her against his chest, despite her still clutching those deep-frosted peas. "That's better now, innit?" She nodded her head into his polo and he took it as his clue to start rubbing her back in soothing circles.

"I just hit my ex-husband," she summed up the situation again.

He pulled back a little, smirking. The peas were unpleasantly cold against his abdominal muscles, but what he wouldn't do for her sake... He leaned a bit further down and tugged a strand of hair out of her face. "Yeah, you did, sweetness. Marvelous punch by the way. Couldn't have done it better myself. I'm a bit proud of you actually."

"Figures. You would be about the only one congratulating me for actually punching someone in the face," she said, pouting despite not being able to deny the somewhat humorous under-tone of the whole situation.

"Well, he deserved it. Do I even want to know what he said to you before you punched him in the face?" He took a step back and gingerly pulled the makeshift cooling package from her grasp. Her knuckles were still red, but less swollen. Very gently he tried to open her fist and she sucked in a breath.

"That hurt?"

She nodded.

"Doesn't look broken though. I think you'll live, Rocky. I had far worse in my time," he threw her a crooked grin, which fell when he took in the insecure expression on her face. No confidence there and definitely none of that sass he had come to appreciate so much. They were back to square one. He wondered why that was.

"So what did he say?" he asked without any pretext, pressing that bag of deep frosted peas against her skin again, while he held her hands in his.

"I'd rather not tell," she averted her gaze.

"Why?"

"Cause you'd probably hunt him down and kill him?" she replied, slowly raising her eyes to his.

"Maybe I'll do so regardless," he pointed out to her and she sighed. Prolonging the inevitable was useless.

"All right then... He asked me what I was doing whoring myself out to some buff meathead when I could have a shot at the real thing with him," she had her eyes downcast as if it had been her who had said that, so consequently she was quite surprised, perhaps one might even called it shocked, when she heard him laugh.

The experience had something mesmerizing and surreal about it. Come to think about it now, she had at best seen him smirk or smile occasionally so far. It had never been full-blown, booming laughter. He was actually rubbing at the corners of his eyes once he had stopped laughing, so thorough was his amusement.

"Aaaaaaaah, bleeding hilarious!" he sighed eventually and there was still a smile on his face when he looked at her.

"So you defended my honor there, sweetness?"

She nodded like under some kind of spell, her mouth slightly agape. He surged forward then, briefly, but firmly pressing his lips against hers. Her reaction never came. He pulled back. His eyes narrowed as he regarded her.

"What?" she asked softly.

"I'm trying to make up my mind about something," he told her evenly.

"About what?" she asked sort of breathlessly. He was in a strange mood just now, displaying sides of his character she wasn't all too familiar with. Gentleness, caring, humor of the non-sarcastic variety – it was a little perplexing. She wasn't sure she would be able to stand more surprises tonight, unless they were pleasant.

"We have to call the police."

"The police?" she hadn't seen that one coming. She had thought he would complain about her not kissing him back.

"Come on, Nat. The bloke's calling you all the time and sending you flowers and now he turns up on your doorstep uninvited? That's called harassment and it's punishable by law."

"I don't know," she looked down at the floor. "He's my ex-husband after all."

"Yeah, but that can't possibly mean he's allowed to treat you like that." There was a stern look on his face now and she nodded her consent. "You told him to leave you alone." He pointed at his own chest. "I told him to leave you alone. And big surprise there... He just wouldn't listen. He's just dense like that. I know blokes like him. He'll keep coming and coming and coming. And next time he'll turns up, I promise you, I won't stay in the car. So the math you have to do here is pretty simple. Either you call the cops now or I'll end up being charged with assault eventually... Doesn't sound like there's a bright future ahead of us if you ask me."

"Stuart..." she tried to plead with him. Of course he had a point, but she didn't want to see it yet.

"Oh, don't give me none of that "Stuart" crap, luv. You know I'm right, you just don't want to admit it to yourself."

Her head sank to her chest. "All right. I'll call the cops first thing tomorrow." When had her life started being so bizarre, she actually uttered sentences like this? She desperately tried not to correlate the more frequent occurrence of those strange events with the time she first met Stuart.

He shook his head. It was not in order to plead his innocence. No, he wanted her to take action right away, in spite of how tired and worn out she felt. "No, right now. Because knowing that prick, he's thinking about pressing charges against you for assault already. We have to nip this in the bud before it comes back to bite us."

* * *

It had sounded simple. Call the cops, report Tony. Nothing was ever that simple.

They ended up having to drive to the police precinct in downtown Tampa to do that. Describing and repeating the happenings of tonight was an arduous and time consuming process. It was 1 am by the time they got in the car to drive back to her house. The ride there was spent in silence. He drove and she sat next to him, her head leaned against the cool windowpane. When they arrived at her house and he had parked the car, he touched her leg. She turned her head and was met by his face that was uncharacteristically displaying a crooked smile.

She reached out her hand and patted his scruffy cheek, which brought out his smile more.

"You look sleepy," he stated the obvious.

"I am," she yawned.

"I hope you don't expect me to carry you in. Won't happen, no matter how tired you are," his gruff words cut right through her mellowness. How he managed to still be that ill humored when his facial features were relaxed like that and his voice was sort of low and affectionate was beyond her. It probably was some innate, inexplicable talent.

"I think I'll still manage to walk on my own two feet just fine. Thank you," she told him, retracting her hand.

"Fine," he got out. Standing between the car and the door he stopped and turned around to look at her over the roof of the car. She was on the opposite side of it. The vehicle between them created a certain distance.

"I'm proud of you, you know," he said and after a split second he turned and closed the door as if nothing had actually happened.

His words kept echoing in the back of her mind right up until they stood inside her living room. Her mind had just now worked through the events of tonight and she had come to the conclusion that there was no way she would let him leave here tonight. She needed him close. After everything that had happened, there was so much left unsaid between them that needed to be said. There was for one thing the fact that she was very grateful for his presence by her side all night. He hadn't said much, but him simply being there had been a source of strength and encouragement. And sometimes being able to hold someone's hand in a difficult moment was all it took to make a difference. She would have liked to tell him that. Maybe not tonight, he didn't seem to be in the right mood for that, but first thing tomorrow morning.

"Please, stay with me tonight," she said and could see how her request surprised him momentarily. "Just to sleep. I don't want you to go just yet. You'll be gone again soon enough and heaven knows for how long."

She knew she was asking a lot of him. He wasn't the type to lie down with someone and hold them in his arms until they fell asleep. At least he didn't seem the type to her.

He sighed tiredly. "All right."

His 'all right' soon got them inside her bedroom. She disappeared into the bathroom and changed into her pajama, some nondescript gray jersey shorts and a blue camisole. When she came back, he was shirtless and already underneath the covers.

She slipped underneath them too and to her surprise he immediately pulled her towards him. But she wasn't content with spooning. She needed to see his face, so she wiggled around in his arms until she could look at him properly. "Hi," she said unintelligently and smiled at him.

He didn't reciprocate her whispered 'hi', but stared at her in the semidarkness for a second or two, his eyes glinting momentarily as he moved a little. His hand came up to cup her cheek and she sighed at his touch, which made the left corner of his mouth curve upwards in a crooked smile. He traced his thumb over her bottom lip and she slightly opened her mouth. Her lips closed around his fingertip. Her tongue touched his skin for a second. His brows drew up and his gaze grew heated. Her heart was beating fast inside her chest when he leaned closer. One of his hands was now resting between her shoulder blades. It felt warm and rough on her naked skin and pulled her towards him inch by inch. Their breaths mingled, their lips touched. The kiss they shared was slow and languid. She couldn't help herself. She wanted more. She hummed against his lips when his arms squeezed her a little more tightly and she felt his body pressing against hers.

One of her legs was already draped across his hip. Underneath the blanket his hand slowly travelled up from her knee to her thigh. His touch made her breathless and she shivered slightly. Their lips had never separated from each other. It was all just a seamless, very thorough kiss that increased in intensity like a musical piece nearing its finale.

He was driving her crazy, making her feel like a teenager again. Back then everything about love had been so dramatic and intense and this was intense too, because they had gone about it with the swiftness of a Victorian couple, but she was very much a modern woman. She wanted him so much her whole body seemed to cry out for him. She tugged a little at his hair as she opened her mouth to him, wanting to deepen the kiss. When he granted her that wish, the most exquisite sound left her lips. A sound deep from the back of her throat. It was somehow meant to express her approval of the way he kissed and touch her. Paradoxically, however, she was also frustrated at the same time because there was almost no possible way she could be closer to him like this. The only barrier between them now, was a bit of underwear and a pajama and that already seemed to be too much.

He rolled on his back, bringing her on top of him. The shift in positions let her break the kiss and look at him in surprise. Her long hair got in the way and cast shadows upon his face. She pulled it back to look at him properly. He smirked and that simple facial expression was enough to drive home the realization that she needed to feel his lips on hers again. And by needed she didn't mean 'need' as in something casual. No the word 'need' had become a desperate imperative.

They started kissing again and his hands dove underneath her camisole. They glided up her sides, slowly pushing up the fabric of the top in the process. They broke the kiss long enough for him to be able to cast that top aside with almost disdain. Then she was exposed to him for the first time and there was no way out. His eyes got the chance to travel over her slender, yet very womanly body. She always had thought her hips to be a little too round, her tummy not quite as toned and flat as it should be, _all right, not toned at all, she didn't have that much time to work out _and her breasts, well, she thought they were sort of okay.

He seemed to think so too because in the next couple of minutes he paid a lot of attention to each of them. So much indeed that she soon squirmed against his body which made him gasp in return because without paying much thought to it she had rocked her hips against his. They started kissing again, but now with added ardor. She realized too late it was his way of distracting her, because next thing she knew they were both naked underneath the covers. It wasn't like she disapproved, but she would have liked to be a more active and appreciative participant in that process. She had hardly seen anything.

He laid her down on the bed and leaned above her, his lower body not yet coming anywhere near hers, although at this point she wished it did. He stroked her thighs and her tummy and soon his intentions became quite clear to her. It was obvious how he was still avoiding touching the area that was in-between her thighs. He was slowly preparing her for what was to come, almost like he was circling his prey and building up the anticipation.

Right now his fingers were ghosting over the outline of her tattoo. The relatively fresh ink stood out dark and black against her pale skin. "Still rather spiffy," he said casually as if they both weren't naked and minutes away from having sex.

She was stupid enough to let the casualness of his tone fool her. She even drew a breath to answer him, but she never got as far because next he pressed his lips to her tattoo. Her focus was instantly on the feeling of his mouth against her skin and kept her from forming coherent sentences. But inevitably that focus shifted when his fingers finally moved downwards to explore the territory he had so far neglected. She tensed. Her hand flew to his forearm and he immediately stopped moving his hand.

"What?" he asked simply. His voice was not harsh and the way he looked at her expectantly and a little worriedly made her head sink back down on the mattress.

"Nothing," she sad softly and let her fingers trace over his arm in reassurance. "You just surprised me, that's all."

He leaned over her and closer to her face, as if looking at her like this would help him to better assess the situation. "Are you sure that's all that was?"

"Yes," her hand came up to caress the side of his face, which encouraged him to close the distance between them with a kiss. She teasingly let her teeth graze over his bottom lip, which made him hum and squeeze her thigh in approval. His tongue slipped past her lips and thanks to her reassurance his hand now continued his journey. It finally reached its destination. Her eyes flew open and she let out a tiny gasp.

He pulled back and grinned. She squinted in surprise. That grin was not laced with irony or sarcasm for once. She had not seen that look on him before. She wanted to commit it to memory, but then his fingertips continued exploring and found a rather sensitive spot and all her thoughts were whisked away. She arched backwards. Her eyes fell shut. A long-drawn sigh escaped her mouth. He seemed to like that response of hers because he rewarded her by leaving a trail of kisses on her neck, his beard brushing softly over her skin, while his fingers continued to work their magic.

She let herself fall and enjoy the moment, but however much she enjoyed it, her own desire to touch him increased with every second. What he did to her was amazing, but what did she do to him apart from lying there and expressing her appreciation? She didn't want to remain passive any longer. The anticipation was eating her up. She was curious to see whether she could give him pleasure the same way he could. She wanted him to be with her in this in every way. And right now she was very, very, very much ahead of him. That was at least what the fast beating of her heart and the rapidly building tension between her thighs told her.

She took a decision. She had to act quickly or she would be too far gone in a haze of lust and hormones to do anything. Her fingers gently wrapped around his wrist. She pulled his hand away, while she pushed him down on the mattress and she sat up. He let it happen with a somewhat awed expression on his face, which made her feel a surge of confidence.

It encouraged her to actually follow her impulse and straddle him without actually lowering her hips, which was somewhat of a torture, being this close and not being able to go through yet with what both of them wanted. But it was part of the plan. She just needed to convince him it was a good one. She tried to tell him that by smiling at him before she leaned closer and pressed a series of long and open-mouthed kisses to his neck. They were varying in intensity because she was trying to find out what he liked. She soon learned that he was more responsive to the rougher ones that included a bit of teeth than the tender ones. She filed that information away for later use as her lips travelled down to his chest. They tasted, explored and teased, while his hands moved up her thighs, stroked along her sides in an upward motion and finally settled on her back.

When she looked at his face, she saw that his eyes were closed. The fact that he was so responsive to this and apparently enjoying it made a tender feeling spread in her chest. It also served as an encouragement. Her hand that had previously rested on his pectoral muscles now traced lower and lower. Past his belly button, still further down. She wrapped her fingers around him gently, her eyes still on his face. His eyelids snapped open quickly; he sucked in a deep breath. "Natalie..." he breathed. Her full name, not some kind of abbreviation.

"Didn't expect that, did you?" she whispered to him.

"No," he was forced to short replies thanks to the present location and activity of her hand. "But it's... a very pleasant... surprise." His tone of voice aroused her. It was raw and his words were strewn in between his inhales and exhales that were slightly unsteady.

It encouraged her to go on, especially because of the blissful expression on his face. What she did to him didn't leave her unaffected either. It was strangely mutual and made her start forgetting what the point of resisting had been, though it had seemed important at first.

Still she wouldn't lower her hips, even though she felt the weight of his hand on the small of his back. She was too stubborn for that, because she wanted to draw this out and make it more pleasurable. Didn't he know the rules of the game? _Explore, tease__, but don't relinquish control, at least not until the right moment comes around_.

Was it now? It felt like it.

She somewhat lowered her hips and let go off him. His eyes found hers. He was breathing hard, the expression on his face mesmerizing her so much that all she could do was stare at him. This was him aroused, aroused and wearing a slightly quizzical look. She chose to answer the unspoken question behind his eyes. "I'm on the pill."

The words had seemed to register because she could feel his hand helping her along as she lowered her hips that last little bit.

This was the moment before everything happened. Maybe the best part. Their bodies were touching all over, but not yet in the most intimate way possible. It only needed a slight shift of weight or maybe a helping hand, but for a moment neither of them did anything. They just looked at each other trying to catch their breaths as they figurative stood on the edge of that something more that would take things to a whole different level.

She bit her bottom lip. Anticipation was killing her. It was impossible not to want more. So she moved her hips against his and their bodies finally interlocked. It was slow and gradual and for a moment that sensation took away her breath. Initially pain and bliss intermingled, making it difficult for her to distinguish between those two, until at last bliss prevailed. She fell forward, let out a loud exhale. Her long brown hair fanned around her face. His hands were warm and reassuring on her hips.

She brushed her hair out of her face, so she could see the look on his face. His mouth was slightly agape, he was breathing faster now. His whole focus was on her and that excited her. How often did someone look at you in awe, like you were the center of their universe? Only in moments like these.

His finger on her hips squeezed her flesh and made her shiver. They hadn't even moved yet. So far nothing had happened yet. Still all of this felt amazing and let little shudders run all over her skin. She entwined her fingers with his. He squeezed them and it felt good, but it also hurt the tiniest bit because both their grip was so tight.

Gingerly she moved her hips, because she knew if she was too eager now, she could ruin this for them. Sex had merely been a fantasy for her in the last year. Of course she had had certain needs, but she had never indulged in them with another person. But this here was not just "another person" – it was him. The man she had been fantasizing doing this to for weeks now.

She had almost forgotten how good sex felt and how personal it was, because it didn't get any more personal than letting go entirely of your restraint around another person. It also occurred to her right then that you could be out of practice when it came to sex, because thanks her long dry spell, she was hypersensitive to everything he did.

He made a sound. Something like an "aaaaaah". It was low and deep and wonderful and that expression on his face so enthralling. His control was slipping and for once he could not hide behind nonchalance or rudeness. He couldn't lie to her about how much he enjoyed this. "Natalie..." he said her name and it swam on a long exhale. "Slow down," he admonished her.

He was right and so she tried to be reasonable and slow down. But being reasonable was so far from what her body dictated her to do, it was laughable. After lying to herself about not wanting him for so long, now that she was being honest with herself, there was no way she could call upon her famed self-discipline. When it came to him, she possessed none, she learned in that instant. He seemed to sense that too, because his hands on her hips eventually forced her to slow down. Unwittingly though he also pulled her more deeply into him. "Bugger!" he swore, closing his eyes in concentration and making her sigh in approval.

Through the hormone induced haze in her head she realized he wanted to be nice and make this more lasting and probably thereby more memorable for her and she couldn't help but feel honored. But no matter what he did, this would always be memorable to her. It was their first time together after all. Also, it was rather pathetic admitting it, because what they were doing at present at best qualified as a quickie, she was very close to the edge already. Her mind was still stuck on the part where this was finally really happening and the sight of him naked and underneath her was just such an incredible turn on.

"It's okay," God, her own voice sounded strange, sultry, breathy... no wonder with the way he was touching her breasts. It was really distracting her from forming coherent sentences. "You don't have to hold on... I'm close too."

She hadn't counted on what happened next. He flipped her over. Her eyes were wide open in surprise. He was staring down at her and looked like he wanted to devour her. For a moment their bodies separated and she let out a disapproving sound because she instantly felt cold. Ironically her hair got in the way again as propped herself up on her elbows to look at him, or better glare. For a second she had fantasies about chopping it off, at least until he smoothed it back and out of her face. Again their eyes met and she held his gaze. She sank back down on the mattress. Her breath quivered when he leaned over her and pushed into her agonizingly slowly and then stilled halfway. 'Do you finally understand that I'm going to make you mine?' that move seemed to say as well as the look he wore on his face.

After he had given her a moment to adjust he tried to get deeper yet and she arched up against him, wanting him closer and always more, more, more of him. He clutched at her then like he wanted to will their bodies to become one. She could feel and hear his fast breath close to her ear. She moaned loudly, before he crushed his lips to hers and silenced her.

His movements became more forceful and desperate. His forehead was leaning against hers. It created an atmosphere of intimacy like they were breathing in the same air, feeling the same.

She wanted to whisper something to him but then her inner muscles contracted and her thoughts became a jumble, consisting of very primitive sensory perceptions, like his tongue on her skin, his breath in her ear, his taste on her lips or the warm feeling of his skin underneath her fingertips.

She hooked one leg around his hips. Feeling the desperate wish to ever be closer to him, she no longer thought about whether it would hurt in the morning. She just needed more of him.

Their bodies were now sweaty, but neither of them minded. What she did mind though was that utter feeling of intense bliss that unexpectedly spread through her. She had almost forgotten how great and powerful that feeling was.

"Stuart," his name left her lips like a surprised gasp, as all her nerve ends lit up like a fuse and her whole body shivered.

His body was attuned to hers by now and responded by tensing. One of her hands was resting between his shoulder blades and she could feel his muscles under her palm contracting. Inevitably her gaze was drawn to his face. There was a look of concentration on it. His brows were drawn together and his mouth slightly agape. He made a deep, guttural sound that seemed to resonate through her body. She bit her bottom lip and arched up into him, emitting a soft whimper. He opened his eyes and the look in them made her pull him down for a greedy kiss.

The intensity of the feeling slowly receded, but they still continued kissing, only now less passionately and more lovingly. He drew back a little and looked at her with a smile on his face that was trusting and affectionate and simply wonderful.

Now would have been the time for the typical post-coital confession of love, but neither of them said anything. He only cupped her face with his hand and let his thumb brush over her lips. She slightly opened them and pressed a wet kiss against its tip, which made him laugh softly. It had all started like this after all.

Eventually and with a certain reluctance he moved off of her and let himself fall back on the mattress with a content sigh. For a while they were only lying there trying to catch their breath. Eventually he looked at her, making a gesture at her with his hand. She didn't get his meaning right away, so he pulled her to his side with a grunt.

Perhaps cuddling was in his repertoire after all. She was resting her head in the crook of his arm. Eventually, when their bodies had cooled down somewhat, he pulled the covers up to their waists, which strangely enough didn't make her feel ashamed of her partial nudity. For once she felt happy. She would even go as far as saying she was content and without a care in the world, well, except for falling asleep too soon and potentially missing out on any more of this post-coital bliss.

Eventually she sat up trying to leave bed, but his hand wrapped around her wrist. She looked at him over her shoulder. His eyes that were for once not taunting her were fixed on her expectantly. Unlike her, he was slightly tanned and somehow she only noticed now that she looked back at him spread out on her sheets. Again it occurred to her that he was quite handsome, despite the crooked nose and the big ears. But his looks were only the surface. She was learning more and more about him each day they passed together and what once had been a mixture of attraction and repulsion, was now only attraction. Her feelings for him had changed. They had gotten deeper in a way, bigger and more meaningful. She no longer saw his character as a mere agglomeration of adjectives. She saw him as just him, a wonderful but also rather contradictory individual, too complex to be described by mere words. But even though she couldn't put it into words, he had something about him that made her happy, deep down to her very core. The thought brought a smile to her face.

"Don't go," he said simply and his words and the way he was for once so open about his feelings made her smile even more and fall back into his arms if only for just a few moments.

"I can't stay in this bed forever with you, you know. There are some other basic human needs besides sex..."

"What a fancy way of saying you've got to pop to the loo," he grinned and tugged some more at her arm, so she ended up sprawled across his manly chest.

"Perhaps. But then again there's also the possibility I want to clean up. Has that ever occurred to you, huh?" she pointed out and ran her hand over his beard. She had yet to get used to its feel. Lately he was growing it out around the chin. It made him look like one of those Spartan warriors from _300_. The resemblance was uncanny, especially now that he was only wrapped in her bedclothes.

"I've always been dying to ask you, but never got the chance to, where exactly is that beard project of yours going?" The words 'beard project' had him amused, she could tell because his chest was moving up and down like he was laughing and she was resting her head directly on it.

"Does the quote 'This is madness! This is Sparta!' mean anything to you?"

"Should it?" she extricated herself from his embrace, slowly and somewhat reluctantly. This time he made no sound of protest. She shot him a look. "Well, I'm off the bathroom, my Leonidas."

"And I'll be here... my queen." He smirked and crossed his arms behind his head, obviously getting comfortable. Did he know that move brought out the muscles in his torso even more? He looked like an ad for an expensive perfume for men.

She got up very, very reluctantly and became immediately aware of her own nudity thanks to the way he so unashamedly stared at her backside, which immediately motivated her to start picking up her clothes from the floor. Concerns about cellulite and not being as sporty as he was used to were instantly occupying her mind.

"Don't even think about that," he admonished her like she had wanted to do something appalling. "No clothes."

"No clothes?" she frowned. "You won't even be awake when I get back in five minutes."

"Here's saying I will be and most eagerly awaiting your return," he told her, waggling his brows at her.

"That sounds creepy and like I don't want to come back after all," she joked.

"Really?" he gave her a long hard look.

"No," she licked her lips, hesitating actually to reveal the depths of her feelings to him, but deciding for it eventually. They had just slept with each other after all. "To be honest, I don't even know how I'm going to survive the next couple of days without you." And having said something so emotional she quickly whisked out of the door out of fear of being ridiculed by him.

When she came back shortly after, she found him, true to his word, fully awake and eager to hold her in his arms again. He pulled her into him just as soon as she was back in bed again and covered both of them with the blanket. His arms around her, his warm, naked body next to hers and the soft blankets surrounding them, now that would be her new definition of heaven on earth. The old one had been something boring like being curled up in front of the TV with a cup of coffee and just couldn't measure up to this. Apparently he too found this to be extremely pleasant, because he made a sound of contentment and she couldn't help but silently agree with him in her thoughts. Just after she had drifted off to sleep, he pressed a lasting kiss to her temple. "If it's any consolation to you, sweetness, I'm not sure either how I'll manage without you," he said.


End file.
